The Phainopepla 
psychology not quite understandable, and 
his manners hopelessly alien. 
Having said so much, we have per¬ 
haps said too much. Any prisoner at the 
bar is entitled to the services of an attor¬ 
ney, and any bird sitting at the bar of 
our poor human judgment is entitled to 
sympathetic consideration. He is en¬ 
titled, moreover, to be judged by a jury 
of his peers; and if we would deal exact 
justice, or even approximate justice, to 
the Phainopepla, we must doubtless be¬ 
come birds ourselves for the nonce. Here 
is a motion, then, for a new trial. 
Pep pep —it is a musical, half-plain¬ 
tive, haunting note which first apprises 
us of the arrival of the “shining flycatch¬ 
ers” from their winter home in the desert. 
The males arrive first, but are followed in 
four or five days by the modest gray 
females, who, likewise, call pep pep , or 
perp perp, in solicitude, or resentment of 
human attention. The male is discreet, 
but a well-screened observer may some¬ 
times catch one in a transport of ecstacy. 
He leaps into the air, turns a somersault, 
returns to the perch with quivering wings, 
swaps ends violently, displays the crest 
to the utmost, and produces all the while Taken al ios Colibris Photo by the Author 
a flood of jumbled, weak notes intended AN unobtrusive observer 
r T , , A FEMALE PHAINOPEPLA TAKING NOTES 
tor song. In soberer moments one catches 
constricted phrases of a yodeling character: ahcuhcheziweerp, cleerp, zweep, 
and, most characteristically, “ wheedle ah ” (Mrs. Bailey). These vocal 
efforts are casual and disconnected, and they never by any possibility 
attain the dignity “of a superb song, powerful and finely modulated,” as 
alleged by Coues in his single encounter with the bird in Arizona. Besides 
the song and call notes, one hears a scrat or kuteerp, which betoken appre¬ 
hension, or distress, or at least disagreement of opinion at home. 
All these vocal expressions are subdued, as though the performer had 
stuck a mute in the throat of his little cornet, and had never been able 
to remove it again. 
557 
