ieho hee AUS Ds RAOINs = BO ToL ET rN 15 
It imitated bird songs as it is supposed to do, but its voice was sweeter 
than that of either a catbird or thrasher. This bird every now and then 
would jump up in the air about three feet and then alight back on its 
perch. It did not snap up insects in its flight, but it seemed to be doing 
it for the fun of it. I believe this is courtship behavior. 
Mockingbirds were plentiful. When seen perched at a distance they 
usually can be identified by their tails, which are long and twitchy. 
I drove on up to Olney to look up the Robert Ridgway estate, but when 
I found it out in the country a few miles from town, I discovered the gate 
locked with a sign saying to phone the caretaker. Having spent consider- 
able time in the morning looking at birds, I did not feel I could spare the 
time to drive back to Olney to call the caretaker on a chance I might be 
admitted. 
In driving downstate and back I find that the dickcissel intrudes itself 
upon one’s senses. It seemed as though every other stretch of telephone 
wire between two poles had a bird on it, and as I drove by it went “dick- 
cissel.” By the time I neared Chicago I was thoroughly dickcissel con- 
scious and mistook the silhouette of a towhee, of all birds, sitting up on a 
telephone wire, for a dickcissel! In a way this was not so surprising as the 
astonishing fact that the towhee was singing like a dickcissel. Its tail was 
down and its head was thrown up like a dickcissel. The phrasing, timing, 
and spacing of the song was exactly like a dickcissel’s. The first two notes 
were too musical for a dickcissel, but the last three or four were exactly 
the same. It sounded to me like this: 
ree- 
Be- S1S-SiS-Sis, 
over and over again. 
Ornithologically a trip downstate is always rewarding. The year before 
at Giant City State Park we heard a chuck-will’s-widow among the voices 
of many whip-poor-wills. We saw a pileated woodpecker, and saw and 
heard the Carolina wren, tufted titmouse, and white-eyed vireo in the early 
morning. We saw too the summer tanager, broad-winged hawk, and tur- 
key vulture. Bob-whites are common throughout the state and indigo bunt- 
ings are the second commonest roadside bird. The most common roadside 
bird is the dickcissel, and if you do not watch out, you too, like the towhee, 
will come home singing like a dickcissel. 
320 N. Elm St., Itasca 
Si =F veal 
Christmas Gift Suggestion 
Menaboni’s Birds. Paintings by Athos Menaboni; text by Sara Mena- 
boni. 1950. Rinehart, New York. $10. 
Thirty-two radiant paintings in color are the chief glory of this im- 
pressive book. Menaboni is a distinguished artist with his keen vision, his 
faithfulness to detail, his appreciation of the character, beauty, and dra- 
matic quality of his subjects. He is remarkably successful in depicting 
action. He does not paint distant backgrounds, but the plants accessory to 
