BIRDS OF NEW YORK 437 



the mother bird is frightened from the nest as one walks through the forest. 

 It is composed of dry leaves and grasses and is rather bulky, but blends 

 inconspicuously with the materials on the ground. The entrance is at 

 one side, the dry leaves drooping down over it so that one can not look 

 in without thrusting the cover aside. The eggs are usually 4 or 5 in number, 

 of a creamy white ground color, rather profusely speckled with reddish 

 brown and lilac. They average .85 by .65 inches in size. 



The call note of the Ovenbird is a weak cheep which is uttered when 

 the bird is worried or frightened, especially while an intruder is near the 

 nest, when it is frequently reiterated. Its common song has been written 

 for more than a generation by " tea-cher, tea-cher, tea-cher, tea-cher,'" each 

 repetition being louder and more emphatic than the preceding; but, as 

 many modem observers have remarked, the accent does not fall on the 

 first syllable, the proper rendering of the performance being " cher-te^ 

 cJier-te, cher-te, cher-te.'' This ringing refrain is often heard .as one journeys 

 through the forest, in springtime and early summer, and will surely attract 

 the attention of everyone that passes. It is not, however, the most 

 melodious of the Ovenbird's performances, the passion song, as it is usually 

 called, being commonly delivered on the wing when the bird is flying through 

 the trees, as I have witnessed it on several occasions, the performer rising 

 from a limb of moderate elevation and flying upward through the forest 

 until he reaches nearly the height of the tallest trees when he seems fairly 

 to burst with a torrent of warbling, gurgling notes which have no special 

 form of delivery but are certainly melodious and impressive. After the torrent 

 has spent its force, the performer partially closes his wings and darts down 

 to the forest floor again, the song seeming to die away, as Thayer has said, 

 "as if smothered by the sudden descent of the bird through the air." This 

 flight song I have witnessed on a few occasions delivered just in the early 

 dusk of evening, when the bird was flying upward from the highest tops 

 of the forest trees to an altitude of 100 or 200 feet above the forest, flutter- 

 ing its wings and rising higher and higher and pouring forth a confused 

 medley of melody until apparently exhausted, like the Skylark, it closes 



