28? HOMING WITH THE BIRDS 



The males are extremely active on wing, and colour 

 almost every flight they make with their song as 

 well as their plumage; while the volubility of both 

 parents is inherited by the youngsters, which talk 

 incessantly throughout the day, and keep me 

 awake half of the night, if it happens to strike the 

 parents' fancy to hang their pendent purse a yard 

 from the foot of my bed outside the screen of my 

 sleeping-porch, as a pair of these birds did in the 

 summer of 1916. The youngsters in that nest 

 carried on a conversation all night — sleepy, low 

 chips and peeps — while for several nights after 

 they left the nest, each one of them sang himself 

 to sleep and then sang in his sleep the remainder of 

 the night on near-by limbs. One writer on orni- 

 thology has pronounced them "the cry-babies of 

 birdland, " but with this I can not agree except 

 in so far as to admit that they keep up a contin- 

 uous sound; I can discover no complaint or un- 

 happiness about it. It is simply oriole volubility 

 working out in them through the only sound 

 possible to the youngsters in expressing themselves. 

 I am perfectly sure that these notes on the part 

 of the oriole nestlings arc not crying, because they 

 are uttered by birds full-fed, in perfect comfort, 

 and during the night, v/hen they are half asleep. 



Some of our writers on bird music find strains, 

 especially in the operatic performances of some of 

 our great European composers, very similar to the 

 strains of the song sparrow, oriole, and a number of 



