VOICES OF TROPICAL BIRDS FUERTES. 307 



bled and fevered brains the one tangible hold I had with the won- 

 derful world outside, and it recalled nearly all of our associations in 

 South America. 



Some of the roadside finches and grassquits have curious and ex- 

 plosive little buzzy sounds. Volatinia, a raven-black mite living 

 along the hedge-rows, has an amusing song-habit. Sitting on the 

 top of a grass or weedstalk he suddenly rises in bee-like flight about 

 a 3^ard into the air ; at the apex of his little spring he turns a rapid 

 somersault, with a volatile " bzt," and drops back to his perch. The 

 whole effort takes perhaps a second. 



Most of the tanagers, which grade insensibly into the finches, are 

 not much when it comes to singing. However, the larger /SaUators 

 have clear, whistled songs that are highly characteristic. They are 

 leisurely soprano songs, usually heard from thickets of soft growth 

 on the mountain sides. One song heard in the Eastern Andes that I 

 ascribed to S. atripennis^ though I could never quite satisfactorily 

 prove the singer, was as loud, pure, and wide-ranged a song as I 

 have heard. Though quite complicated it was always identically the 

 same in form and range. Two long descending slurs, one ascending, 

 a long descending trill, then a descending run in couplets (like a 

 canyon wren), a rising slur, and a final short trill on a high note. 

 In many songs, heard in several localities, this scheme was closely 

 followed. The mountain forests of the Tropics furnish an endless 

 and enchanting field for this kind of study, which our hasty survey 

 and limited time unavoidably rendered all too superficial and frag- 

 mentary. 



We found, as a rule, that the gemlike tanagers of Calospiza, 

 Chlorochrysa^ etc., were nearly devoid of song. Their drifting 

 flocks, sifting along through the tree ferns and higher levels of the 

 forest, were much like a flock of migrating warblers, always* made 

 up of several species, and their little lisping sounds were further 

 reminders of our northern tree gleaners. 



The cotingas, as a rule, were silent, though some of the more 

 flycatcher-like, such as Tytyra., have loud, buzzy calls, and the big 

 ones, like Pyroderus and Querula^ have deep, pervasive vocal sounds 

 hard to describe, but fairly easy to imitate. The tiny and gorgeous 

 manikins all make loud, staccato "pips," out of all proportion to 

 their diminutive size. 



The thrushes, however, are quite as satisfactory singers in the 

 Tropics as the}^ are in New England. The robin group, Planesticus, 

 is large and varied from Mexico south, and w^e had many chances 

 to study and compare them in song and actions. P. giyas, of the 

 Andes of Colombia, considerably bigger than a blue jay, and solid 

 dusky but for his corn-colored bill, feet, and eyelids, had a dis- 



