FINCHES 



59 



Botli of the names, " Towhee ' and " Che- 

 wink," by which this bird is commonly known, 

 are intended to represent its characteristic call- 

 note, and the difference between the soinid of the 

 two words furnishes an interesting illustration of 

 how differently two persons may hear the same 

 syllables. That many ornithologists, whose hear- 

 ing should be very keen and discriminating, make 

 the syllables " tow-bee " out of the call is shown 

 by the fact that the American Ornithologists' 

 Union has adopted that name for the bird. Yet 

 to many others the call is much more clearly 

 represented by the syllables, " che-wink," even to 

 the ;; and k. though some bird students insist 

 that birds are incapable of uttering any true 

 consonant sound. At any rate, the tone and 

 accent of the call form a singular blend of cheer- 

 fulness and inquiry, albeit the quality is a bit 

 nasal. 



The bird's song, such as it is, consists of three 

 notes, the first two strongly accented and the 

 second lower by several tones than the first: 

 these followed by several very rap'dly uttered 

 notes of the same pitch — not a " trill." as they 

 often are described, since a trill is the rai^id 

 repetition of two notes of different pitch. There 

 have been various efforts to reduce this song to 

 syllables, for example, Seton's transliteration, 

 chuck-burr, pil-a-wiJl-a-zi<iU-a-ii'ill, and Thoreau's 

 rendition, hip-vou. Ite-he-hc-hc, which gives a 

 close approximation to the vowel value of the 

 syllables. 



Something strangely like the ventriloquistic 

 faculty seems to be possessed by tiot a few 

 American birds, and probably many observers 

 have noticed that the Chewink apparently em- 

 ploys it in a very marked degree, their per- 

 sistence having been taxed to the utmost to 

 locate a Chewink who sang at intervals of cver\' 

 ten or fifteen seconds for several minutes 

 before he was finally discovered, usuallv in ])lain 

 sight and not more than twenty-five or thirty 

 yards distant. 



This bird has two other peculiarities which 

 distinguish it from most of its kind. r)iie is its 

 way of scratching on the ground, an operation in 

 which it uses its feet alternately, after the man- 

 ner of the domesticated hen. Indeed, the bird 

 gets much of its food by this ground-foraging, 

 incidentally making a commotion among the dry 

 leaves which suggests the efforts of a mucii 

 larger bird, or of a squirrel or woodchuck. .\gain, 

 the Towhee is decidedly unlike other birds in 



its apparent nonchalance when its nest is ap- 

 proached. It may be dangerous to infer that 

 this seeming indifference is deliberately assumed 

 for the purpose of deceiving the intruder, yet it 

 is difficult to account for it in any other way, for 

 the bird betrays much solicitude once the nest is 

 actually discovered. 



The Cowbird seems to have a special prefer- 

 ence for the nest of the Towhee and seems to 

 choose the latter to bring up her yoimg more 

 often than she does any other species. Fre- 

 quently two, three, and even four Cowbird's eggs 

 have been found in a Chewink's nest, and occa- 

 sionally five or six have 'oeen fotind. In the 

 cases of the larger numbers the nest has gen- 

 erally been deserted as if the Chewinks felt 

 that their good nature had Wen imposed upon 



Phuto by H. K. J. lb Cuurtcsy ol i\al. Ai=..j. Aud. boc. 



MALE TOWHEE FEEDING YOUNG 



The two with open mouths are Cowbirds 



too far. The eggs of the two species resemble 

 each other, but the Cowbird's egg is more likely 

 to be smaller and to lack the pinkish tint which 

 is a usual characteristic of the Towhee's. 



Wild fruits of all kinds, from strawberries and 

 blackberries to wild cherries and grapes, are 

 eagerly eaten by the Towhee. However, seeds 

 and insects are its principal food. Beetles and 

 their larv?e, ants, moths, caterpillars, grasshop- 

 j)ers, flies, and earthworms are destroyed by the 

 Towhee. Although it cannot be classed as a de- 

 cidedly useful bird, chiefly because of its haunts, 

 there are no reports of its having damaged culti- 

 vated crops or caused loss of any kind to the 

 farmer. 



The \Miite-eyed or Florida Tovv'hee (Pipilo 

 erythroplitlialiuiis aheiii) which is found on 

 the Florida peninsula, is smaller than the com- 

 mon Towhee and has much less white on the 

 wings and tail and its iris is brownish-yellow or 

 vellowish-white instead of carmine-red. 



