xx PREFACE. 



their nest at a safe distance, and evince no extraordinary emo- 

 tion. Those who have witnessed this, and have also watched 

 the behavior of birds when undisturbed in their quiet retreats, 

 will grant, I think, the same diversity of disposition and tem- 

 perament to obtain among birds that is seen in man himself. 



" In respect to the songs of birds, who that has attentively 

 listened to the singing of different Robins, Wood Thrushes 

 or Purple Finches, has not detected great differences in the 

 vocal powers of rival songsters of the same species ? Differ- 

 ent individuals of some species, especially among the Warblers, 

 sing so differently that the expert field ornithologist is often 

 puzzled to recognize them ; especially is this so in the Black 

 and White Creeper (Mniotilta varid) and the Black-throated 

 Green Warbler (Dendrceca virens). But the strangest ex- 

 ample of this sort I have noticed I think was the case of an 

 Oriole {Icterus Baltimore) that I heard at Ipswich last sea- 

 son. So different were its notes from the common notes of 

 the Baltimore that I failed entirely to refer them to that bird 

 till I saw its author. . . . Aside from such unusual variations 

 as this, which we may consider as accidental, birds of unques- 

 tionably the same species, as the Crow, the Blue Jay, the 

 Towhee 11 and others, at remote localities, as New England, 

 Florida, Iowa, etc., often possess either general differences in 

 their notes and song, easily recognizable, or certain notes at 

 one of these localities never heard at the others, or an absence 

 of some that are elsewhere familiar. This is perhaps not 

 a strange fact, since it is now so well known that birds of 

 the same species present certain well marked variations in size 

 according to the latitude and elevation above the sea of the 

 locality at which they were born, and that they vary consider- 

 ably, though doubtless within a certain range, in many struc- 

 tural points at one and the same locality. In other words, 

 since it is known that all the different individuals of a species 

 are not exactly alike, as though all were cast in the same die, 

 as some naturalists appear to have believed. 



" Certain irregularities in the breeding range of birds have 



11 It is to be remarked that a variety of this bird has recently been found in 

 Florida. 



