Bobolink. 

 (Dolichonyx oriziverous.) 



breast's carol, possessing all the rollick- 

 ing charac- 

 ter of the 

 song of the 

 robin refined 

 into a r i c h 

 sonata, ex- 

 pressive o f 

 joyous con- 

 tentment 

 with life and 

 its duties, it 

 can well be 

 conside red 

 one of the 

 star p e r - 

 ances of the 

 avian musi- 

 cians. Poets rave of their favorite birds, 

 the skylark, the mockingbird and the 

 nightingale, but if these poets were mu- 

 sicians and visited the Canadian woods 

 in the summer song season they would 

 be forced to accept the carol of the rose- 

 breast as unparallelled in the world of 

 woodland song for richness and purity. 

 There is a wierd mystery enshroud- 

 ing the song of the strike, and as we 

 listen to his broken, gutteral and varied 

 but not entirely unmusical effort, the 

 question arises in our minds whether he 

 has learned it bar by bar from those 

 smaller songsters he is wont to prey 

 upon or whether he has swallowed it 

 piecemeal with the victim. Certainly 

 no such heterogenous combination of 

 sounds ever had their origin in the mu- 

 sical mind of one bird. It does not ap- 

 pear to be a breeding song, nor a decoy 

 call, for the bird is usually quite con- 

 spicuous while performing. I therefore 

 suggest that it is either a mocking of 

 the slain, or the undigestible spirit of 

 his victims crying from out his wicked 

 frame. 



of song from early morn till evening's 

 shades close out the day. With the 

 warbling vireo it consists of a prolonged 

 musical warble, repeated at short inter- 

 vals. With the red-eyed it forms a sort 

 of rambling recitative, never ceasing 

 save to swallow a morsel of food. De- 

 scription is difficult, but one writer has 

 called him the preacher and interprets 

 his notes as saying, " You see it," "You 

 know it," "Do you hear me?" "Well, 

 do you believe it? " To me he appeared 

 to be talking to himself for want of bet- 

 ter company, and in his search among 

 the branches and leaves he says, " Oh, 

 dear, where is it? " " I see it," " I'll 

 have it," " I've got it," " Snap," " Now, 

 again." 



Red-eyed Vireo. 

 "The Preacher." 

 (Vireo olivaceus.) 



Warbling Vireo. 

 (Vireo gilvus.) 



The vireos are all day and all sum- 

 mer songsters, and from the red-eyed 

 and warbling vireos our two common 

 breeding species flows a constant volume warblers would take much effort, time 



Yellow Warbler. 

 (Dendroica aestiva.) 



To individualize the songs of the 



