142 Bird Comrades 





 the nest and are able to take care of themselves, the 



silence in robindom is again broken, and there is a flood- 

 tide of melody from early morning till eventide. The 

 second lyrical period lasts until another nest has been built 

 and another clutch of eggs has been hatched, 'when the 

 choralists again relapse into comparative silence. 



Since coming back to Ohio, I imagine that the eastern 

 robins are better singers than their western relatives. 

 Their voices, to my ear, are clearer and more ringing, 

 less apt to break into a squeak at the top of their register, 

 and there is more variety of expression as well as greater 

 facility in managing the technique. I think this is not 

 all fancy, yet I would not speak with the assurance of 

 the dogmatist. 



In the good Jayhawker state the orchard orioles are 

 more abundant than they are in the eastern and north- 

 eastern part of the state of Ohio. Indeed, the range of 

 this species is more southerly than that of their congeners, 

 the Baltimore orioles. In their proper latitude no birds, 

 or at least few of them, are more lavish of their melody 

 than the orchard orioles. What a ringing voice the oriole 

 possesses! His song has a saucy note of challenge run- 

 ning through it, and also a human intonation that makes 

 it rarely attractive. All day long the male sings his 

 cheery solos, scarcely pausing for breath or food, now 

 sitting on the topmost twig of a dead apple tree in the 

 orchard, now amid the screening foliage of a maple in 

 the yard, and anon on the other side of the street in a 

 stately cottonwood. But where is that modest little 



