THE SPRING SONG. 



If you are ready for this quest when the sun crosses the 

 equinox the 21st of March, you will be in good time, and 

 your labours will be lightened by studying the birds as they 

 come one by one, hearing each voice in a solo, before all have 

 gathered in late May and individual notes blend in the 

 chorus. In this locality there is very little general upward 

 movement before the vernal equinox, for the weather is too 

 capricious. A few Song Sparrows and Bluebirds begin to 

 sing, but the Yellowbirds that have wintered with us are 

 still wearing their old coats, and have not broken into song. 

 Last spring (1894) I noted in my diary the return of the 

 Song Sparrows March 5, but the flocks of Bluebirds and 

 Robins did not come until the 13th, when a flock of a hun- 

 dred or more Fox Sparrows also arrived, and the White- 

 throated Sparrows followed them. 



The birds oftentimes arrive singly or by twos or threes, 

 and then again suddenly in great flocks. One afternoon 

 there may not be a White-throat in sight, the next morning 

 they will be feeding upon the ground like a drift of brown 

 leaves. Almost all birds migrate at night, and every dawn 

 will show you some new arrival, pluming and drying his 

 feathers in the first rays of the sun. Birds who depend 

 upon insect diet, Lke the Phoebe, the commonest of the fly- 

 catchers, may arrive too soon, before insect life has quick- 

 ened, and suffer much through their miscalculation. Often 

 the appearance of individuals of a species does not indicate 

 the beginning of the general return, as they may be birds 

 that have not gone far away, but have merely been roving 

 about all winter. 



From the last of March until the first of June the spring 

 migration is in full swing, some of the earlier birds to arrive 

 will have passed on, before the Tanagers and Black-polls, 

 the latest of the Warblers, appear. The last week of May the 

 Spring Song is at its height ; let us look at the order in which 

 the singers begin and end their daily music. 



You must be up in the long twilight that precedes dawn, 

 if you wish to hear the little precentor the Chipping. 

 Sparrow give the signal on his shrill pitch pipe. Then 



7 



