' ig2o J General Notes. 297 



while to quote at length from this gifted observer and interpreter of bird 

 ways: 



"He opened his bill — set it, as it were, wide apart — and holding it thus, 

 emitted four or five rather long and very loud grating, shrikish notes; 

 then instantly shook his wings with an extraordinary flapping noise, and 

 followed that with several highly curious and startling cries, the con- 

 cluding one of which sometimes suggested the cackle of a robin. All this 

 he repeated again and again with the utmost fervor. . . . The intro- 

 duction of wing-made sounds in the middle of a vocal performance was 

 of itself a stroke of something like genius. 



"That the sounds were wing-made I had no thought of questioning. 

 . . . Two days afterward, nevertheless, I began to doubt. I heard a 

 grackle 'sing' in the manner just described, wing-beats and all, while 

 flying from one tree to another; and later still ... I more than once 

 saw them produce the sounds in question without any perceptible move- 

 ment of the wings, and furthermore, their mandibles could be seen moving 

 in time with the beats. 



"If the sounds are not produced by the wings, the question returns, 

 of course, why the wings are shaken at just the right instant. . . . The 

 reader may believe, if he will, that the bird is aware of the imitative quality 

 of the notes, and amuses itself by heightening the delusion of the looker-on. 

 My own more commonplace conjecture is that the sounds are produced 

 by snappings and gratings of the big mandibles . . . and that the 

 wing movements may be nothing but involuntary accompaniments of 

 this almost convulsive action of the beak. But perhaps the sounds are 

 wing-made, after all." 1 



The first, second, and third parts of the song, as described by Torrey, 

 correspond, respectively, to what I have considered the second, third, and 

 first parts. In view, however, of the continuous nature of the Boatt ail's 

 performance, almost any part of the song might be taken as the first. 



Mr. Alexander Wetmore tells me that his observations on the species 

 at Punta Gorda in early February, 1919, fully support the conclusion 

 that the pattering sound is produced mechanically by the mandibles. — 

 Francis Harper, Biological Survey, Washington, D. C. 



Clark's Crow in Denver. — The undersigned saw, to his amazement, 

 a pair of Clark's Crows (Nucifraga Columbiana) flying over the city well 

 within the residential district on December 7, 1919; the region of Denver 

 had had, previous to this date, two spells of zero weather, and whether 

 the extreme cold caused these unusual visitors to our city it is hard to 

 determine. This is the first occasion that I have seen this crow so far 

 away from the mountains of our neighborhood, and the first time in 

 Denver. — W. H. Bergtold, 1121 Race St., Denver, Colo. 



1 A Florida Sketch-book, 1894, pp. 108-110. 



