TWENTY COMMON WARBLERS. 



PART II. 



GROUP II. 

 ( Continued ) 



The Louisiana Water-thrush (Seiurus 

 motacilla)is a wagtail in the descriptive 

 sense of the word. It and its more north- 

 ern relatives, the water-thrush and the 

 palm warbler, are the only Minotiltidae 

 that habitually oscillate the tail. It is 

 patterned similarly to its brother, the 

 oven-bird, but can never be mistaken for 

 that bird. Its back is olive ; its under 

 parts are whitish cream-buff streaked 

 lightly with i)lack, save on the throat, 

 and the white superciliary line is very 

 prominent. What shall we say of his 

 song? Much has been said pro and con, 

 but still observers will not agree. Mr. 

 Torrey thus writes his radical opinion: 

 ''It is loud and ringing — for a warbler's 

 song, I mean ; in that respect well 

 adapted to the bird's ordinary surround- 

 ings, being easily heard above the noise 

 of a pretty lively brook. It is heard the 

 better, too, because of its remarkably dis- 

 connected, staccatO' character. Every 

 note is by itself. Though the bird haunts 

 the vicinity of running water, there is no 

 trace of fluidity in its utterance. No 

 bird-song could be less flowing. It 

 neither gurgles nor runs smoothly, note 

 merging into note. It would be too 

 much to call it declamatory, perhaps, but 

 it goes some way in that direction. At 

 least we may call it emphatic. * * ^ 

 As most frequently heard here (Natural 

 Bridge, Virginia) the song consisted of 

 eight notes, like 'Come — come — come — • 

 come — you're a beauty,' delivered rather 

 slowly. 'Lazily' was the word I some- 

 times employed, but 'slowly' is perhaps 

 better, though it is true that the song is 

 cool, and, so to speak, very unpassion- 

 ate." Now, the fact that the song is not 

 flowing need not detract from its beauty ; 

 but it is not staccato — at least none of the 

 dozens of individuals I hear every year 

 sing thus. Declamatory? As well call 

 the clarionet in a schcrco declamatory. 

 Lazy and slow? It is raj^id and ener- 



getic. "Unpassionate," he calls it; why 

 then should Mr. Chapman say, "It is the 

 untamable spirit of the bird rendered in 

 music. There is an almost fierce wild- 

 ness in its ringing tones?" Farther on, 

 Mr. Torrey says something about "sing- 

 ing a measure or two." As far as my 

 experience goes I never heard less than 

 the full song; but as most ornithologists 

 are silent on this point I may be mis- 

 taken. Again he says : "My apprecia- 

 tion of it grew as the days passed. What- 

 ever else might be true of it, it was the 

 voice of the place/' What more can we 

 desire than that? Though both motacilla 

 and novehoracensis are noted for the 

 flute-like quality of their notes, Mrs. 

 Doubleday disparagingly says of the lat- 

 ter, "The bird has no flute-like notes, but 

 an emphatic 'smacking or chucking kind 

 of warble.' " Mr. Burroughs' opinion is 

 not so miserly. In "Fresh Fields," he 

 says : "Then its quick, ringing song, 

 which you are sure presently to hear, 

 suggests something so bright and silvery 

 that it seems almost to light up, for a 

 brief moment, the dim retreat. If this 

 strain were only sustained and prolonged 

 like the nightingale's, there would be 

 good grounds for Audubon's compari- 

 son." Mr. Wilson, not discriminating 

 between novehoracensis and motacilla, 

 assigned the superior song of the latter 

 to the former, as he is quoted by Mr. 

 Nuttall: "Here [in the cane brakes and 

 swamps of the South] it is abundant, and 

 is eminently distinguished by the loud- 

 ness, sweetness and expressive vivacity 

 of its notes, which, beginning high and 

 clear, flow and descend in a cadence so 

 delicate as to terminate in sounds that 

 are scarcely audible." In "Wal<:e-Robin," 

 Mr. Burroughs applies the adjectives 

 "ecstatic, exuberant, unpremeditated," 

 and adds as to its form, "Its song is a 

 sudden burst, beginning with three or 

 four round notes much resembling cer- 

 tain tones of the clarionet, and terminat- 

 ing in a rapid, intricate warble." Dark, 



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