394 
The Ohio Naturalist. 
[Vol.III, No. 5, 
ON THE AUTUMNAL SONGSEASON* 
J. R. Taylor. 
What I have to say is so patently unscientific that my first 
word must be a disclaimer of any such intention. Subjective 
method like mine is, I know, anathema in science. From an 
objective standpoint there is no music in the Brown Creeper’s 
note ; it is a creaking, a filing, an old chair is as musical ; yet I 
have followed it as Ferdinand followed Ariel. It is courage come 
to share our winter, a conclusion not necessarily unscientific. 
Imagination, witness the discovery of Neptune or the setting up 
of the mastodon from fragments of bones, is as great a force in 
science as in the arts ; and there is no great gulf fixed between 
science and art, the mind working not differently in the two fields. 
We of the opposite camp follow beauty, you truth ; the Cardinal 
in the snow means as much by one method as by the other. 
Therefore if we learn gladly of the scientists, the reverse is true 
also ; and because I have learned birds chiefly by their songs, I 
find I have to ornithologists, and however small it may be, inter- 
esting and supplementary information. V' 
Even scientists know that there is a definite songseason, in a 
way synchronous with the breeding season, from March to June. 
It is also well known that birds sing beyond this period, the only 
absolute lulls seeming to fall in August and in December. I have 
heard the Bluebirds singing in the snow at Christmas, the Robin 
on New Year’s Day; and the Carolina Wren, in the words of Mr. 
Riley, sings when he durn pleases. But the spring songseason 
remains fixed and unapproachable for its continuity and multi- 
tude of song. What has been more neglected is the autumnal 
songseason, which seems to me also a definite period, more or less 
immediately preceding the departure of the birds for the south. 
At the end of August, this summer, the Orioles and the Warbling 
Vireos, after many weeks of silence, were all singing again on the 
campus, and soon after, of course, were gone. This, I think, is 
a habit which may be found to be universal. I cannot be sure of 
certain birds. The Whippoorwills sing on into September appar- 
ently without a break. In the Adirondacks a few years ago the 
Barred and the Great Horned Owls were silent in July and 
August, and hallooed over the lakes all night long in September; 
but in their case this could hardly precede a migration. I have 
heard the Bobolinks sing for a few moments in the dawn, at the 
end of August, after they must have changed plumage, and after 
more than a month of silence ; I have heard the Red-winged 
Blackbirds in October in a chorus unheard since early July ; and 
the list might be made a long one, in each case preceded by a 
*Read before the Wheaton Club of the Ohio State University, October 14, 1901. 
