lOO 



Bird - Lore 



descending trill, then a descending run in couplets (like a Canon Wren), a 

 rising slur, and a final short trill on a high note. In many songs, heard in 

 several localities, this scheme was closely followed. The mountain forests of 

 the tropics furnish an endless and enchanting field for this kind of study, 

 which our hasty survey and limited time unavoidably rendered all too super- 

 ficial and fragmentary. 



We found, as a rule, that the gemlike Tanagers of Calospiza, Chlorockrysa, 

 etc., were nearly devoid of song. Their drifting flocks, sifting along through 

 the tree-ferns and higher levels of the forest, were much like a flock of migra- 

 ting Warblers, always made up of several species, and their little lisping sounds 

 were further reminders of our north- 

 ern tree-gleaners, r-'^-'^^'^' 



The Cotingas, as a rule, were 

 silent, though some of the more Fly- 

 catcher-like, such as Tytyra, have 

 loud, buzzy calls, and the big ones, 

 like Pyroderus and Querula, have 

 deep, pervasive vocal sounds hard to 

 describe, but fairly easy to imitate. 

 The tiny and gorgeous Manikins all 

 make loud, staccato "pips," out of 

 all proportion to their diminutive size. 



The Thrushes, however, are quite 

 as satisfactory singers in the tropics 

 as they are in New England. The 

 Robin group, Planesticus, is large 

 and varied from Mexico south, and 

 we had many chances to study and 

 compare them in song and actions. 

 P. gigas, of the Andes of Colom- 

 bia, considerably bigger than a Blue 

 Jay, and solid dusky but for his corn-colored bill, feet, and eyelids, had 

 a disappointingly weak and squealy song. Members of the tristis group, 

 however, are to me the finest singers of the whole genus, trilling, piping and 

 warbling with the greatest abandon and purity of tone. They are shy singers, 

 and rarely to be heard except after long silence in one spot. P. jamaicensis, 

 heard with a divine accompaniment of Solitaires, lost nothing of its beauty by 

 the comparison. The related genus Melanotis, the "blue mockers," are accom- 

 plished and brilliant singers, with much of the well-known quality of all 

 Mockingbirds. But they rank very high, as do the members of the interesting 

 Antillean group, Mimocichla. I shall never forget a concert I once heard on 

 New Province, in the Bahamas. We were out in the "coppet," or woods, col- 

 lecting, in the afternoon, About four o'clock a drenching thunderstorm broke, 



BAHAMAN THRUSH 

 (.Mimocichla bahamensis) 



