282 • NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



It is characterized by energy and power, rather than variety or sweetness, yet 

 it is not iinpleasing. Audubon calls it a " simple lay," and again " a short 

 succession of simple notes," — expressions that would give one who had never 

 heard its song an altogether incorrect idea of its true character. Wilson is 

 still more in error when he states that this bird has no song, but an energetic 

 twitter, when, in fact, it has two very distinct songs, each in its way remark- 

 able. Nuttall describes its song as " a simple, long, reiterated note, rising 

 from low to high, and shrill" ; Eichardson speaks of it as "a loud, clear, and 

 remarkably pleasing ditty " ; and Mr. Allen calls it " a loud, echoing song, 

 heard everywhere in the deep woods." In reference to the songs of this bird, 

 and the injustice that has been done by writers to this and other species 

 of our birds, Mr. Boardman of St. Stephen has written me the following just 

 observations. 



" Many of our common Warblers, Thrashes, and other birds, have rare songs 

 they reserve for some extra occasions, and many of our common birds do not 

 get credit for half their real power of song. Once last spring, as I was watch- 

 ing for some birds, I heard a new and very pretty warble, something like 

 the trill of a Winter Wren, and found that it came from our common slate- 

 colored Snowbird (Junco hycmalis), a bird that I see every day that I go 

 to the woods, and yet these notes I had never heard before. It is the same 

 with the Golden-crowned Thrush. When it gets into the top of a tall tree, 

 its strain is so rare and beautiful that but few know it as from tliat bird. 

 The same is true of the Water Thrush, and also of both Turdus pallasi 

 and Tiirdus swainsoni" 



The Oven-Bird always nests on the ground, and generally constructs nests 

 with arched or domed roofs, with an entrance on one side, like the mouth of 

 an oven, and hence its common name. This arched covering is not, however, 

 universal. For a site this species usually selects the wooded slope of a hill, 

 and the nests are usually sunk in the ground. When placed under the 

 shelter of a projecting root, or in a thick clump of bushes, the nest has no 

 other cover than a few loose leaves resting on, but forming no part of it. 



A nest from Racine, Wis., obtained by Dr. Hoy, is a fine typical specimen 

 of the domed nests of this species. The roof is very perfect, and the whole 

 presents the appearance of two shallow nests united at the rim, and leaving 

 only a small opening at one side. This nest was five inches in diameter 

 from front to back, six inches from side to side, and four inches high. The 

 opening was two and a quarter inches wide, one and tliree quarters high. 

 The cavity was two inches deep, below the brim. At the entrance the roof 

 recedes about an inch, obviously to allow of a freer entrance and exit from 

 the nest. Externally this nest is made of wood, mosses, lichens, and dry 

 leaves, with a few stems and broken fragments of plants. The entrance is 

 strongly built of stout twigs, and its upper portion is composed of a strong 

 framework of fine twigs, roots, stems, mosses, dry plants, etc., all firmly 

 interwoven, and lined with finer materials of the same. 



