4 M o n thl y B ul I e t in 



Cardinals call almost incessantly, and become rather tiresome after 

 a while. They are beautiful birds, full of life, and are found everywhere. 

 One made a specialty of calling "Jimmie," with rising inflection. And 

 a certain mockingbird near the house amused me greatly by imitating 

 him; only the mocker said it in a tone of reproach, such as a mother 

 uses to warn her erring offspring. 



Pine-woods sparrows became quite numerous before I came away. 

 Their song is one of the very finest I have ever heard; it is in a class 

 with the songs of the hermit thrush and veery, and the nightingale and the 

 blackcap of Europe. The summer tanager is an exquisite bird. His song 

 is sweeter and less forced than that of the scarlet tanager. At least two 

 orchard orioles came to my house and gave their sweet warbling song for 

 me during the last week. Loggerhead shrikes are common. They are 

 persistent singers, but no one could really call their "song" beautiful. 



Tufted titmice, Carolina chickadees, brown-headed nuthatches, and 

 blue-gray gnatcatchers were all numerous. The Carolina chickadee says 

 "dce-di-di." I was much interested in one nuthatch that drank from holes 

 made in a pear-tree by a sapsucker; he would drink a while, turn away 

 as though he had had enough, hesitate, then turn back for another drink: 

 he repeated this performance many times. How like a human tippler! 

 Gnatcatchers are cheerful little birds, talking to themselves all the time 

 as they busily explore the trees and bushes. 



I did not hear any whip-poor-wills, although Southerners said I did. 

 What I did hear was the chuck-wills-widow. The call is unmistakable. 

 The "chuck" is given in a lower tone, like the similar "chuck" of the 

 whip-poor-will, and is often not heard at all. There was something 

 irresistibly funny about this call, especially when I awoke in the dead of 

 night and heard the birds denouncing the poor "widow" that has somehow 

 displeased them. 



For the first time in mv life I became acquainted with the white- 

 eyed vireos. Their song is quite different from other vireo songs, and is 

 not at all monotonous. 



My warbler list included the yellow-throated, hooded, and orange- 

 crowned, and the Florida yellow-throat. The yellow-throated warbler is 

 much like the black and white in habits, and except for the yellow throat 

 looks much like him. He has a song like that of the black and white, only 

 with a somewhat wider range between the high and low notes. Another 

 song resembles the indigo bunting's. The Florida yellow-throat is a beautiful 

 bird. The yellow is richer than in the Maryland yellow-throat, and covers 

 a wider area, while the mask is larger. The hooded warbler's song is 

 somewhat like that of the magnolia, but louder and more pronounced. I 

 also heard him give a song like that of the redstart. 



The Carolina wren sings surprisingly loud for such a small bird; and 

 he has a variety of notes. One bird that shouted through the forest like 

 a cardinal seemed to say "dwiddle-di, dwiddle-de, dwee," the last syllable 

 much higher than the rest. 



Woodpeckers of several kinds were common in the pine woods: red- 

 bellied. Southern downy, Southern hairy, and flicker. Note that the last 

 is slightly different from our Northern flicker, having more conspicuous 

 black bars on the back. The red-headed woodpecker is found more fre- 

 quently near the towns. 



