74 BREWSTER'S WARBLER 



Song. — As the following records show some individuals of these 

 birds sing like V. pinus, some like V. chrysoptera while the song of 

 others is intermediate in character. 



From Bridgeport, Conn., Eames* writes: "Seven birds, typical of 

 V. leucobronchialis, expressed their good spirits by precisely the song 

 of the preceding {V. chrysoptera) except in one trifling point. 

 Another, with a bright yellow breast-patch, had, in addition, a few 

 original variations of its own. Still another, with a close resemblance 

 to V. pinus, repeated songs of V. chrysoptera only, but they were all 

 harsh and. disagreeable in comparison. * * * ^ perfectly typical 

 bird repeated but one style of song. This surprised me greatly, it 

 being precisely the same as the commoner song" of V. pinus. I heard 

 this many times on two different occasions before shooting the bird, 

 and it was always the same. But one more bird, with a faint greenish 

 color on the back, a strong patch of yellow on the breast, and a 

 wash elsewhere on the under parts, used the latter song exclusively. 



"The only V. lawrencei I ever knowingly listened to, as before 

 mentioned, favored me with its song for nearly two hours, and dur- 

 ing the several hundred repetitions, it never varied in the least 

 particular from the characteristic song of V. pinus, its song consist- 

 ing of two drawling notes, see-e-e e, zwee-e-e-e-e, with a very decided 

 z sound. The first series is somewhat higher" pitched than the last 

 and hardly as long continued." 



"Continued experience leads me to think; that the song of this 

 puzzling bird ( V. leucobronchialis') is not, aS has been stated, any 

 criterion by which to distinguish it. Sometimes they sing exactly like 

 chrysoptera, again like pinus, and often have notes peculiar to them- 

 selves." i^Sage^^.) 



"During the ten or fifteen minutes which the bird ( V. leucobron- 

 chialis) was under observation I had the pleasure of hearing it sing 

 many times, even seeing it open its bill in the act of song. This song 

 exactly resembled the rising and falling tse notes of V . pinus but was 

 slightly weaker than the average song of that species." (Chapman^.) 



From a male Lawrence's Warbler which was nesting with a 

 Blue-winged Warbler, Bildersee^' records the following three songs 

 and the observation is independently confirmed by Beebe^'' : 



"(a) Shree-e-e, swe-e-e-e, the first syllable like that of the song 

 of the Golden-winged Warbler, the second like that of the song of the 

 Blue-wing. This was the song most frequenljly heard. 



(b) Shree-e, shree, shree, shree, the typical song of the Golden- 

 winged Warbler. 



