2 I A. BiCKNELL on the Singing of Birds. [ July 



a sudden recommencement of song, but gradually with the 

 cessation of feather-growth. About the middle of August a few 

 notes suggestive of their song may now and then be heard about 

 woody tracts where for weeks the birds have conducted them- 

 selves with silence and seclusion. These preliminary notes are 

 hesitating and faintly uttered. On succeeding days they become 

 louder and more extended, suggesting the beginning of the true 

 song, but there is an uncertainty about their delivery which 

 seems to betray either inability or lack of confidence. Later, a 

 sudden bold effort may be made, when the bird follows the 

 successively higher notes of its true song until a point is attained 

 beyond which it seems incapable of proceeding, and abruptly 

 discontinues. But after a brief season of such eflorts and failures 

 the true song is attained. Though the apparent inability of the 

 bird to sing may result from lack of vigor after the moult, the 

 manner in which song is I'egained suggests vocal disability as a 

 not improbable cause of the preceding and succeeding silence. 

 In the supplementary song-period, song is to be heard only for a 

 few days and in the early morning hours, and seems never to 

 reach the precision and vigor of the true spring song. 



The ordinary song of the Oven-bird, but for its inseparable 

 association with the quiet recesses of summer woods, would cer- 

 tainly seem to us monotonous and commonplace ; and the bird's 

 persistent reiteration of this plain song might well lead us to 

 believe that it had no higher vocal capability. But it is now well 

 known that, on occasions, as if sudden emotion carried it beyond 

 the restrictions that ordinaril}' beset its expression, it bursts forth 

 with a wild outpouring of intricate and melodious song, proving 

 itself the superior vocalist of the trio of pseudo-Thrushes of which 

 it is so unassuming a member. This song is produced on the 

 wing, oftenest when the spell of evening is coming over the 

 w^oods. Sometimes it may be heard as an outburst of vesper 

 melody carried above the foliage of the shadowy forest and 

 descending and dying away with the waning twilight. 



Siurus naevius. Small-billed Water-Thkush. 



In full song while passing in the spring. On its return visit it 

 is ordinarily silent, though probably not invariably so. The 

 song of a Water-Thrush heard in the evening of August 25, 1S79, 

 I felt very sure was of this species. 



