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Song of the Golden-crowned Thrush. 
(Siurus auricapillws.) 
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The Singing of Birds. E.P.BicknelL 
nit. Moitms gibus, in Forest and Stream. 
The song of this species 1ms been but little de- 
scribed by writers; in fact it is only within the 
last few years that mention has been made of its 
best musical efforts. The common, loud clanking 
notes so often heard, have been listened to by all 
collectors, but a superior strain, only occasionally 
uttered apparently, lias been listened to by but 
few intelligently. I think it safe to say that no 
bird among us which is so well known has eluded 
the describers of bird songs as this one has done. 
I listened to the true song of the Oven Bird in 1880 
for the first time, and before I had read of its dis- 
covery by any writer. The first burst of melody 
reached me in a dense piece of low woods filled 
with underbrush, in Montcalm county, in May, 
and the delightful notes were surprising and 
doubly pleasing to me in such a location. To de- 
scribe the notes would be next to impossible. It 
is more difficult than the songs of the Warbling 
Vireo and Tanager, and with more dash and har- 
mony if it is possible. At first on hearing- the 
notes the idea presented itself that a species new 
to me was singing, and my extreme care in reach- 
ing the glade in hopes of a shot was what secured 
me a chance of witnessing a most singular per- 
formance. Carefully crawling through the almost 
impenetrable growth of small saplings and brush, 
I came at last to a partial clearing over which a 
bird, apparently in the highest transports of joy, 
was fluttering in irregular flight. It is not sur- 
prising that I failed to recognize the bird in its 
decidedly unusual performance, for there was not 
one point in which it resembled itself in ordinary 
habits, and the specimen would have been shot at 
once in my eagerness to add a new bird to my 
collection had I not observed another bird, un- 
doubtedly its mate, perched on the ground near, 
and which appeared to be a Golden-crowned 
Thrush and the centre of attraction to the delight- 
ful warbler overhead. Never had I hoard the 
song before, and never have I witnessed such a 
scene. This was indeed making love with a spirit 
which I had never witnessed among our birds be- 
fore. The song was almost continuous, and with 
an occasional interruption to the new song by the 
common chattering notes so well known and de- 
scribed by Cones as a “harsh crescendo,” the 
notes were all of the most melodious description. 
The energetic unconscious fellow was meanwhile 
constantly flying about above his inamorata, de- 
sciibing every form of flight except that of regu- 
Siurus auricapillus. Oven-bird. 
Toward the end of June the song of this bird, which has been 
so constantly accentuated through our woodland for two months, 
becomes less frequent, and though heard into July, comparatively 
few individuals sing through the month. In some seasons I have 
missed it after the first week, but in others have heard it with 
some regularity through the second week, witli rarely a chance 
song in the week following ; July 23 is my latest date. 
The second song-period occurs in August, and is transient and 
irregular; with varying seasons shifting a little to either side of 
the middle of the month. Rarely it continues imperfectly into 
September. August 9 and September 5 constitute extreme 
boundary dates, but at neither limit were the songs perfect. As 
if the power of song was gradually regained at the maturity of 
the new plumage, the time of silence which follows the breeding 
season, accompanying the moult, is finally interrupted, not with 
a sudden recommencement of song, but gradually with the 
cessation of feather-growth. About the middle of August a few 
notes suggestive of their song may now and then be heard about 
woody tracts where for weeks the birds have conducted them- 
selves with silence and seclusion. These preliminary notes are 
hesitating and faintly uttei-ed. On succeeding days they become 
louder and more extended, suggesting the beginning of the true 
song, but there is an uncertainty about their delivery which 
seems to betray either inability or lack of confidence. Later, a 
sudden bold effort may be made, when the bird follows the 
successively higher notes of its true song until a point is attained 
beyond which it seems incapable of proceeding, and abruptly 
discontinues. But after a brief season of such efforts and failures 
the true song is attained. Though the apparent inability of the 
bird to sing may result from lack of vigor after the moult, the 
manner in which song is regained suggests vocal disability as a 
not improbable cause of the preceding and succeeding silence. 
In the supplementary song-period, song is to be heard only for a 
few days and in the early morning hours, and seems never to 
reach the precision and vigor of the true spring soug. 
The ordinary song of the Oven-bird, but for its inseparable 
association with the quiet recesses of summer woods, would cer- 
Itainly seem to us monotonous and commonplace ; and the bird’s 
persistent reiteration of this plain song might well lead us to 
believe that it had no higher vocal capability. But it is now well 
1 known that, on occasions, as if sudden emotion carried it beyond 
the restrictions that ordinarily beset its expression, it bursts forth 
witli a wild outpouring of intricate and melodious song, proving 
itself the superior vocalist of the trio of pseudo-Thrushes of which 
it is so unassuming a member. This song is produced on the 
wing, oftenest when the spell of evening is coming over the 
I woods. Sometimes it may be heard as an outburst of vesper 
| melody carried above the foliage of the shadowy forest and 
Idescending and dying away with the waning twilight. 
if/ 2 
Auk, I, July, 1884 . p. Jt/3-2/*/ 
