The Pine Siskin 



Taken in Washington 



Whatever be the time of year, Siskins roam about in happy, rollicking 

 bands, comprising from a score to several hundred individuals. They 

 move with energy in the communal flight, while their incessant change of 

 relative positions in flotk suggests those intramolecular vibrations of 

 matter, which the "new physicists" are telling us about. When a bird 



is sighted alone, one sees that it is the 

 graceful, undulatory, or "looping," 

 flight of cousin Goldfinch which the 

 social Siskin indulges so recklessly. 

 Many of the notes, too, remind 

 us of the Goldfinches. There are 

 first those little chattering notes in- 

 dulged a-wing and a-perch, when the 

 birds are not too busy feeding. The 

 koodayi of inquiry or greeting is the 

 same. But there is another note 

 quite distinctive. It is a labored, but 

 singularly penetrating production 

 with a peculiar vowel sound (like a 

 German umlauted u), ziim or zzeem. 

 So much effort does the utterance of 

 this note cost the bird, that it always 

 occasions a display of the hidden sul- 

 phur markings of wing and tail. 



Too much emphasis cannot be 

 laid upon the value of this note as a 

 recognition mark. A review of the 

 pages of California literature dis- 

 closes a tendency on the part of those 

 who have observed the bird in win- 

 ter in southern California, to cackle 

 as though they had discovered an 

 exceptional occurrence, while, as 

 matter of fact, the peculiar ziim of the 

 Pine Siskin is one of the most famil- 

 iar of notes to those who know it. It 

 is rather the best thing about the 

 Pine Siskin, this greeting tossed down 

 from the upper air, as he passes on we 

 know not what heavenly errand. 

 Ziim — it is earnest enough ; it is mel- 

 ancholy even ; yet somehow it stirs the 



Pkolo by the Author 



A THRIFTY THISTLE SISKIN 

 (try saying it out loud) 



183 



