RARER BIRDS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 509 



nest-structures widely different in appearance from those of 

 their relatives residing in the interior. Every egg-collector 

 is aware of the wide variations eggs of the same set may 

 present, not only in the markings and in the tint of the 

 ground color, but in size and form, and especially how wide 

 these differences sometimes are in eggs of different birds of 

 the same species. Also how different the behavior of the 

 bird is when its nest is approached, in some cases the parents 

 appearing almost utterly regardless of their own safety in 

 their anxiety for their eggs or helpless young, while other 

 parents of the same species quietly witness the robbing of 

 their nest at a safe distance, and evince no extraordinary 

 emotion. 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 temperament 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 Eobins, Wood Thrushes 

 or Purple Finches, has not detected great differences in the 

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

 ferent individuals of some species, especially among the 

 Warblers, sing so differently that the expert field ornitholo- 

 gist is often puzzled to recognize them ; especially is this so 

 in the Black and White Creeper (Mniotilta varia) and the 

 Black-throated Green Warbler (Dendrceca virens) . But the 

 strangest example of this sort I have noticed I think was the 

 case of an Oriole (Icterus Baltimore) that I heard at Ips- 

 wich last season. So different were its notes from the com- 

 mon notes of the Baltimore that I failed entirely to refer 

 them to that bird till I saw its author. So much, however, 

 did it resemble a part of the song of the Western Meadow 

 Lark (Sturnella magna; 8. neglecta And.) that it at once 

 not only recalled that bird, but the wild, grassy, gently un- 

 dulating primitive prairie landscape where I had heard it, and 

 with which the loud, clear, rich, mellow tones of this beau- 



