FAMILY Icteridx. 



swamp, or the swimming pool in the springtime coloring 

 which the French artist Corot so much loved to paint. I 

 call to mind a bulrush-bordered pond in the Middlesex 

 Falls, near Boston, where one lovely spring afternoon I 

 heard a dozen Redwings "gurgling" away like the 

 rippling of a brook. After studying the singers and 

 their songs for a full half-hour, there suddenly dawned 

 upon my mind the unmistakable evidences of concerted 

 harmony in the music; then, selecting the songs of six, 

 I arranged them in proper order, with the result shown 

 below, excepting the words (!) and the accompaniment, 

 which were added later.* 



J- =76 



Jlnddnt 



This is really the proper way to study bird music ; the 

 responsive character of the song is a strong factor in the 

 complete understanding of it. Half the bird songs we 

 hear are questions, the other half are the answers ! 



In spring the male Redwings arrive first, sometimes 

 in large flocks. It is fully two to three weeks later be- 



*Of course the birds sang this one octave higher than it is 

 written. 



