EASTERN WOOD PEWEE 275 



I noticed it for the first time on June 3, 1911, and wrote in my 

 notes: "At 3.40 this morning (sun rose at 4.09) a wood pewee sang 

 over and over with perfect regularity a song of five drawling notes — 

 pee-a-wee^ pee-wee — both phrases ending on a rising inflection. The 

 syllables and the pauses between them were so regular that I could 

 time by my breathing. Pee-a-wee corresponded exactly with an in- 

 spiration, then, after a short pause the fee-wee finished at the end 

 of expiration. Then a longer pause — just as long as the rest between 

 breaths — and after this he repeated his song with my next breath. 

 I was breathing, I suppose, 16 times a minute, and the bird slowly 

 fell behind, but he fell behind not from any irregularity, but because 

 his rate was slightly slower than mine." 



In listening to the twilight song in more recent years I have noted 

 that, as the song goes on and on, a bird will occasionally introduce 

 into it, among the phrases that rise in pitch, a phrase of falling 

 inflection. This phrase brings to the song a restful effect. Indeed, 

 Henry Oldys (1904), taking this infrequent phrase as the final theme 

 of a four-line song, points out "that it is constructed in the form of 

 the ballad of human music." He explains that "the arrangement of 

 the ordinary ballad frequently consists of a musical theme for the 

 Hrst line, an answering theme for the second line that leaves the 

 musical satisfaction suspended, a repetition of the first theme for 

 the third line, and a repetition of the second theme, either exactly 

 or in general character, but ending with the keynote, for the fourth 

 line." Illustrating with a verse of "Way Down upon the S'wanee 

 Kiver," he shows that the wood pewee's song is governed by the same 

 principles, and that the final keynote (of the falling phrase) com- 

 pletely satisfies the ear. 



When the bird combines his phrases in tliis way, as he does from 

 time to time, he converts his long soliloquy into a song of great 

 beauty. But we must bear in mind that it is only through the 

 fortuitous arrangement of its parts that the singing assumes for a 

 moment the ballad form, and that the introduction of the key phrase 

 is purely inadvertent. 



Mr. Oldys slyly remarks at the end of his interesting exposition 

 of the twilight song: "In closing this brief account I would call 

 attention to the remarkable fact — perhaps a joke on us — that a bird 

 which we have classed outside the ranks of the singers proper should 

 deliver a song that judged by our own musical standards takes higher 

 technical rank than any other known example of bird music." 



The reader is referred also to two articles by Wallace Craig 

 (1926, 1933) analyzing the twilight song. 



Taverner and Swales (1907) write of the wood pewees at Point 

 Pelee: "Their voices can be heard any hour of the day uttering 



