306 ANNUAL EEPOKT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1915. 



with a sweetness more tlimshlike and of infinite variation. Among 

 all the varied and rich songs about the place — wrens, orioles, and 

 thrushes — on my first morning afield in the continental tropics, 

 Dives made the one deep and lasting impression above all others, in 

 the classic and thrilling surroundings of the ruined Maya city. 



While orioles are always within hearing, I think that doubtless the 

 most pervasive and ever-present sounds in the Tropics come from 

 the even larger family of flycatchers. From the blue, lonesome, 

 plaintive little " phew " of Myiarchus I. ijlatyrhynchu^ and the 

 equally despondent sighs of some of the Elaimas^ to the executive 

 " yips " of the big-billed and derby flycatchers, these characteristic 

 sounds are ever in the ear. So far as I know only one flj^catcher 

 can really be proclaimed as a singer with a real song different from 

 his ordinary calls and scolds. This one exception is no less distin- 

 guished by his coat from the rest of the rather somber-colored family. 

 The gorgeous little vermilion flycatcher has a simple but very sweet 

 song; lispy and thin, but delivered with great devotion. Darting 

 like a flame up into the flood of sunlight, he reaches a point about 

 a hundred feet from earth, and then, with scarlet crest spread out 

 like a hussar's hood and head thrown back, he floats lightly down 

 on trembling wings, lisping in ecstacy his poor sweet little song, 

 " Cirivi cirivi cirivi." It is hardly noticeable eA^en among the little 

 finch twitters along the roadside, but for a flycatcher it is remark- 

 able ; and surely no gifted thrush or lark ever went to his matins more 

 devoutly. It is a strange contrast to the usual flycatcher utterances, 

 which are loud, raspy, egotistic, and highly commandeering. Our 

 kingbird is a fair example of the family, with the greatcrest as a 

 good amplifier of the impression. It is the forest flycatchers, like 

 the w^ood pewee and some of the Elainias^ that have the lost-soul, 

 hollow-hearted plaints; the sun-loving kinds are very kings of earth 

 in their noisy self-confidence. 



The finches and sparrows in general do not add much to the tropi- 

 cal melange of bird music. They are frequently birds of great 

 beauty, and all have some blithe little song, "finchy," and character- 

 istic of each species. However, to a sparrow falls the distinction 

 of being the most widely distributed singer w^e encountered in South 

 America. It is safe to say that anywhere in the Andes above 2,000 

 feet, from the Pacific to the Orinoco slope, the little Andean white- 

 throat, Brachyspiza, will cheer the traveler with his brief and pleas- 

 ant piping. " It is sweet cheer, here," gives the phrase and accent. 

 It is more like an abbreviated fox-sparrow song than anj^thing I can 

 recall. I shall always feel a personal debt to its cheery optimism, 

 as it sang daily in the court of the hotel in Bogota in the clammy 

 chill of the damp days 9,000 feet above sea, wdiile I was fighting 

 through the fever contracted in the lowlands. He gave my scram- 



