VOICES OF TROPICAL BIRDS FUERTES. 305 



by a contortion of which the cowbird's spring effort gives a mild 

 idea. The bird first looks down, ruffles the nape feathers and elevates 

 the tail, and then, clattering the bill and emitting the other sounds 

 that he alone is capable of, falls forward, clapping his wings lustily 

 over his back, until he is under his perch with his bill pointing 

 directly up. Now he delivers his last explosive yell, wings and 

 glorious tail all outspread to their utmost, and by means of his first 

 foothold, not relinquished in his effort, and with wings folded, he 

 draws himself back to his first position, where he sits ruffled for a 

 minute or two. Then, depressing his feathers, he repeats his acro- 

 batic song. The males are a full half larger than the females and 

 have enormously developed legs and feet, apparently for this per- 

 formance, recalling a raven's foot ; while the females have the usual 

 slender, gracklelike feet of the family. One never need be bored 

 when there is a colony of these striking and virile birds in the vicinity. 

 Some of the tj^pical orioles and troupials have exceedingly bril- 

 liant, if monotonous, songs, and they are kept as pets in nearly every 

 house in the towns or along the trails in Colombia. Icterus meso- 

 melas nearly drove us insane with his piercing song in the hotel in 

 Cali, repeating it incessantly from his cage at our door. 



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^ahu, 



Fig. 1. 



All orioles are great singers of little tunes, usually going just 

 enough off key to get on your nerves, and this is only one of hundreds 

 of such little phrases. The hooded oriole group have a deliciously 

 naive way of singing little "earless" tunes, like a small boy on his 

 reluctant way to school, whistling himself along the road. This is 

 the most companionable bird song I know and has frequently been 

 real company to me when hunting alone along the banks of tropical 

 rivers and in the foothills. 



It would be impossible here to take up more than a few of the 

 striking types of this large family of brilliant singers, but.it would 

 certainly be doing the whole group an injustice not to mention the 

 wonderful silver and golden songs of one of the black offshoots of 

 the family, Dives dives of Yucatan. This glossy beauty was very 

 common at Chichen-Itza, and was a source of constant marvel from 

 the variety, richness, and volume of its notes. I can not describe 

 them, nor even remember them concretely, but I was at once reminded 

 of the pastor bird I had once heard in the Philadelphia zoo. It 

 had all the deep-throated richness of the best oriole songs, combined 



18618°— SM 1915 20 



