L'>'_ Amkn. Morning Awakening. [April 



cause my records of these birds are too scanty, but reckoned as sue 



minutes after the Robin it would follow the Vesper Sparrow on Mr. 

 Wright's list. On one occasion during the present year 1 hoard the 

 Wood Pewee before the Kingbird and not long after the Robin's 

 beginning. 



It may be worth while to rail attention to this early-morning 

 song of the Kingbird, for it is a true song hut seems to have escaped 

 the notice of most bird-biographers. Though heard occasionally 

 at all times of the day, it is characteristic only of the early morning. 

 It resembles the flight song but is usually given. 1 am confident, 

 from a pereh. At any rate 1 have often seen the bird singing while 

 perched, and the regular early-morning performance sounds like a 

 stationary one. It is a prolonged, ecstatic, unmusical utterance 

 which introduces a phrase suggestive of the word phoebe at frequent 

 intervals among the chattering. I observed a Kingbird in song 

 at 6 P. M.. -Inly 16, 1911, at West Roxbury, Mass.. and made the 

 following notes on the performance: "He was perched in the top 

 of a tall elm. The song may he written as follows: De-de-de- 

 tizip'-Jc-(h'-(h'-tlc-ilz(t-Jzt<'-it. The de-de-de-de part is delivered in a 

 stuttering fashion. Sometimes the stutter and dzip are given 

 twiee before the other part, or climax [the phoebe part] of the song 

 is given. The song is repeated over and over continuously for an 

 indefinite period. With the dzeeit the tail is spread wide. Some- 

 times 1 thought the spreading of the tailed followed x\\c dzeeit immedi- 

 ately instead o( being simultaneous with it. hut it was hard to be 

 sure o\ that at the distance 1 was from the bird. The tail seemed 

 to he spread a little all the time, hut the spreading at the climax 

 was abrupt and pronounced. Tin 1 (/;/'/> note is somewhat emphatic 

 but the dzeeit much more >o." 



The other bird that deserves an early place on the list is among 

 those listed in a group after Mr. Wright's main list, as one that 

 "apparently had not spent the night elose by. but came within 

 hearing in an adventitious way." This is the Tree Swallow [Irido- 

 procne bicolor), for which Mr. Wright has the single record oi 1. 10. 

 \- a matter of fact, the Tree Swallow is one of the very earliest 

 singers in the morning concert. Indred. 1 am not sure hut he is 

 the first of them all; for. of the three mornings when 1 have been 

 favorably situated to hear the first oi the Tree Swallow's singing, 



