The Ovenbird's Call-Song 



BY ROBERT THOMAS MOORE 



I have used the term "call-song" to differentiate the Oven- 

 bird's common song from the more ornate flight-song. Any 

 other term I can think of seems a misnomer. Perch-song, 

 sometimes used, implies that the song is sung from a perch, 

 whereas in my experience it is more often sung from the ground. 

 "Call-song" is at least not misleading, for it connotes a mus- 

 ical production made up of call-notes, and that is what the 

 common song generally is, a series of identical couplets, any of 

 which would sound like the slurred call-note of some species, if 

 issued alone. 



I suppose there is no bird-production which has claimed so 

 much attention and provoked such divergent opinions as the 

 common song of this species. From that early work ' of Mr. 

 John Borroughs, who suggested the "teacher" designation to 

 the present time, there has been an intermittent discussion of 

 the problem, which note of each couplet receives the accent. 

 That the first note received it was Mr. Borroughs' opinion, and 

 with this Simeon Pease Cheney * agreed, illustrating his belief 

 by means of an interesting musical record. But in 1904 Mr. F. 

 Schuyler Mathew's* declared that both were at fault, insist- 

 ing that the accent is placed "on the second syllable, thus: 

 Teach6r." He, too, offered musical records as proof of his 

 contention. Mr. Chapman, who in his "Handbook" had 

 praised Mr. Borroughs' syllabic rendering, wrote in his excel- 

 lent compilation * on the warblers: "Formerly, singing Oven- 

 birds said, to my ear, with remarkable distinctness and deci- 



> Wake-Eobin, 1865, p. 52. 

 » Wood Notes Wild, 1891, p. 63. 



'Field Book of Wild Birds and their Music, 1907, p. 199. 

 *The Warblers of N. America, 1907, p. 222. 



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