•5 28 BiCKNELL on the Singing of Birds. [October 



of April. The latest date that I have record of for the beginning 

 of spring song is April 23. 



Purple Finches were present through the winter of 1877-7S, 

 and the exceptionally early spring which followed enticed them 

 into song as early as the 3d of March. This is my earliest record 

 for the actual beginning of song. Impatient birds sometimes try 

 their pipes on bright days of mid-w^inter, but, so far as I have ob- 

 served, always with poor results. When once regularly begun, 

 singing continues until about the middle of July — 2d to 20th. 



In the autumn the song is weak and desultory, vilthough I have 

 occasional!}' at that season heard a near approach to the full song 

 of spring. Singing is also somewhat uncertain in the fall, and 

 though in some seasons quite general with the species, in others it 

 is not heard at all. Dates for song are down in my books from 

 September 23 to October 31. 



I have elsewhere (Trans. Linnaean Society of New York, Vol. 

 I, pp. 43-44) referred to the song of the Purple Finch in the Cats- 

 kill Mountains in connection with its song in the Hudson Valley, 

 and alluded to variations to which it is subject. 



Chrysomitris pinus. Pine Linnet. 



In his record of the nesting at Sing-Sing, N. Y., in 1883, of 

 the Pine Linnet (Bull. N. O. C, Vol. VIII, No. 3, p. 180, July, 

 1883), Dr. A. K. Fisher has told us that the bird was in full song 

 after May 8. The species undoubtedly nested at Riverdale the 

 same season, although no nest v^^as discovered, and in early May 

 it was often heard in song. This year they are again with us, 

 and singing at the end of March. Their best efforts issue in a 

 confusion of somewhat hard and hurried notes, tending to degen- 

 erate into a chatter. 



Mr. Jonathan Dwight, Jr., has favored me with some interest- 

 ing personal observations on this species, showing that in the 

 spring of 1883, when it bred in the Hudson Valley, it was also 

 conimon on parts of Long Island. At Rockaway, and at C^'press 

 Hills Cemetery, Mr. Dwight saw them and heard them singing 

 at different times between March 15 and May 2. He speaks of 

 their song as a "soliloquizing gabble, interspersed with a pro- 

 longed wheeze — a prolongation of their usual note while flying." 

 This hoarse note sometimes sounds much like a common note of 



