94 THE TOWHEE. 
General Range.—Eastern United States and southern Canada, west to the 
Plains, breeding from the lower Mississippi Valley and Georgia northward; in 
winter from the middle districts southward. 
Range in Ohio.—Common and universally distributed. Winters sparingly 
2 
in central, and (at least the males) commonly in southern Ohio. 
THE impulse to name birds according to what their songs and calls 
seem to indicate in human language surely had a large part in the final adop- 
tion of Towhee for this bird’s name. Towhee for the song that he gives to 
all the world from the topmost twig of some tree growing amid his tangled 
retreat, Chewink for the call of warning when his rights are threatened, and 
Wink-wink when he is nearly frantic at the danger to his family of eggs or 
young. The song is seldom simply double syllabled, but the two prominent 
notes are all that many persons seem to hear. The loud song may be Tow- 
hee-e-e, O, tow-hee-e-e-c, or even Chip, ah, tow-hee-e-e. Its beginning is 
subject to many changes, but its close is almost invariably a trill of greater 
or less length on *‘e,” and always high pitched. I never could make the song 
spell “Chuck, burr, pilla-will-a-will.’ But different ears hear the same song 
differently. The alarm call may be shortened to “sawink,” or “wink.” The 
birds even shorten their vocal expression to “Chuck, chuck,” when the nest is 
in great danger. Before the arrival of the female from the south the male 
sometimes gives a rarely beautiful performance as a sort of soliloquy as he 
sedately walks about among the leaves under a thick bush. It is totally 
unlike his ordinary song, and bafiles any attempt at a description. It is soft 
and does not carry beyond twenty feet. The tree-top rendition is clearly 
his altruistic song, while this other one is as truly his egotistic song. 
Towhee has been called Ground Robin, probably because his sides are 
strongly washed with rufous and because he builds his nest on the ground. 
In general habits he is wholly unlike the Robin. One must look in the brushy 
woods, or brush tangles, not in the open woods for this bird. He is a nervous 
fellow, emphasizing his disturbance at your intrusion with a nervous fluff, 
fluff of the short wings, and a jerk and quick spreading of the long, rounded 
tail, as if he hoped the flash of white at its end would startle the intruder away. 
Occasionally hardy males may be found all winter even as far north as 
Oberlin, but the true migration begins late in March, and the most of the 
birds have gone south by the first of November. Numbers spend the winter 
in the southern half of the state. 
Nesting begins about the first of May, earlier south, and earlier in early 
springs. While the nest is usually placed on the ground, often even in a 
slight depression, it may sometimes be placed in a bush several feet from the 
ground. It is made largely of leaves, with some plant stems, bark and grass, 
with a lining of rootlets. "The birds do not search far for material, but are 
