1^2 BlCKNELL on the Singing of Birds. [April 



Mimus carolinensis. Catbird. 



The Catbird sings from its arrival — late April or eai'ly May — 

 through July, but with decreasing regularity towards the end of 

 the month ; and in one or two years I have not heard it later. 

 Usually singing is abandoned shortly after the beginning of 

 August, bvit sometimes individuals continue in song quite to the 

 middle of the month. 



Though the species remains well into October, and is some- 

 times to be numbered among the loiterers of the following month, 

 during all this time no music escapes it. Careless and extrava- 

 gant with his powers when they are in easy possession, this tal- 

 ented musician has lost them at a time when they would be most 

 appreciated, and naturally less capable performers succeed it. 



Besides its song, and the well-known call-note that has con- 

 ferred its name, the Catbird has another characteristic vocal 

 accomplishment — a short, sharp, crackling sound, like the 

 snapping of small fagots. This is not often heard before the 

 dog-days, but in late summer is sometimes frequent. Usually it 

 is an accompaniment of rapid action as the bird seeks the security 

 of some bushy patch or darts into the thick cover along the road. 



Harporhynchus rufus. Brown Thrush. 



The singing-season of this species, beginning with its arrival in 

 April, scarcely lasts through the first week of July, though isola- 

 ted dates of the singing of single birds extend almost to the end 

 of the month. In my records I find no series of reasonably unin- 

 terrupted dates continuing later than the first third of July, but in 

 different years single birds in full song have been heard from the 

 1 8th to the 26th of that month. Thus in one year a perfect song 

 on July 18 was the first heard since the 5th, and in another year 

 songs on the 6th and loth were the last heard except one on the 

 20th. This mis-timed singing must result either from abnormal 

 variation in the singing-time or mere individual caprice. 



The species appears not to possess a second song-period ; but 

 on September 8, 1881, I heard a few song-notes uttered by one of 

 several birds which were regaling themselves on the fruit of a 

 large gum tree {^Nyssa). 



