314 Wright, Morning Awakening and Even-Song. [july 



and capricious character. This occasional singing often continues 

 for fifteen or twenty minutes, while the birds are fully waking up; 

 and then the several songsters begin to sing very rapidly, repeating 

 their trills with precipitate haste and almost without pauses. I 

 have never heard a Chippy sing in this manner at any other time 

 of day. This rapidly repeated trilling is continued for a while, 

 and then the birds, having apparently expended their surplus of 

 energy, drop into their usual way of singing and continue indefi- 

 nitely. 



3. The Robin {Planesticus migratorius migratorius) comes 

 third in the order of the awakening. Three or four singing birds 

 are usually within near range. The earliest record of the song has 

 been 2.46, when on June 27, 1909, a bird began to sing without 

 previously calling, followed by a second bird in song two minutes 

 later, and by a third bird singing three minutes later still. Often 

 the Robin gives calls a few minutes before breaking into song. The 

 average time of first song based on twelve records is 3.02, the time 

 ranging from 2.46, 2.53 and 2.54 to 3.10 and 3.12 o'clock. The 

 birds with little variation continue to sing lustily and joyously 

 for forty-five to fifty minutes. Then there is a pause of some 

 length during which scarcely a robin song is heard, and within the 

 hour following the first period of free singing only occasionally 

 is the song given and only for a brief time usually. The period 

 of exuberant singing is from 3.00 or 3.10 to 3.45 or 3.50 o'clock. 

 Before 4 o'clock, therefore, the Robins have poured forth their 

 ectasy of song, not to be equalled again during the day, howbeit, 

 one and another may indulge in periods of singing at almost any 

 hour. x\ll sing together at the early hour named and with the' 

 joyousness and freshness of spirit which daybreak inspires. 



On July 4, 1911, the father of a brood, snugly in their nest among 

 the woodbine clambering on the front of the house, wakened on his 

 night perch in a maple by the roadside at 2.50 and suddenly gave 

 a few loud calls. After a minute or two, with solicitous thought 

 of his family, it was evident, he flew to the end of the ridge-pole, 

 and stationing himself, quietly for a moment, at 2.53 broke forth 

 in calls again, and these were immediately followed by song much 

 more softly voiced than usual and continued a briefer time. This 

 short flight constitutes the earliest bird-movement on the wing 

 which I have discerned. 





