The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-06-19
IDENTIFYING soNGBIRDs.

7
these domestic tailors at work under The
| direction OF the matron OF the household'
| -s->O-S-----
IDENTIFYING sONGBIRDS.
The PhraseoIOgy of Their Melody
a Good CIew.
From the Railroad Press
| When the bird choir is in full song, as
| II is during May and June, is is interest
| ing and often perplexing TO seek to un-
ravel the different phrases Of melody, and
distinguish them one from another. The
beginner in bird study will find this
more difficult task than ne imagines. He
| viii be embarrassed both by the confu-
| sion of tongues, the Vertable babel or
| songs, and by the fact that there are such
| slight shades of difference between the
| songs Of several birds OF allied species.
| The songs of the various sparrows, for
| instance, are much alike in general char
| acter. ana IL takes an ear trained to de-
| tail 10 tell which is which Add to these
more general causes of confusion the faeI
| that different individuals of the same bird
| family often have shght id.osyncrasles
| and variations of Songs, and the difficulty
of identifying our mulutudinous summer
| songsters by their notes becomes trebled.
In my own endeaVors 10 name birds
| from their songs / have derived much
help from the somewhat whimsical trans
latiOnS that have been made by naturalstS
OF various bird songs into their cOrre-
spending English phrases. For instance
/ aIlef reading MI. burroughs charming
| description of the oyen-bird, or golden
| crowned thrush and its song, have never
| had the least difficulty in naming ii from
| that sweetly intense crescendo cry in the
| summer woods of Teacher, tea cher
! teacher!' as if the bird were appealing
with childish ins.stence to some prim
unheedinS preceptress of feathered
! school
A boy once asked me: What is that
BIRD that sings so much in the summer
| and goes, 'Rickety- rickety-rickety? " /
| Identified the sOngster at once by the boys
| literal rendering of its phrase as the Mary
land yellow-throat, and have ever since
been unable to translate its song into any
other English equivalent. So if you would
| chance TO catch this summer a rapid proc
lamation OF weak-jointedness in bird Ian
guage,. you may jot down ia your note
book that you have heard Maryland yell
| low-throat.
The other morning / woke up at dawn
| and heard a robins early carol. The song
| presently adjusted itself in my drowsy
| brain to an amusing, but very expressive
| follows
Amelia Chow-Chow,
Amelia Chow-ChoW,
| Pretty Amelia,
| Pretty Amelia,
Pretty Amelia Chow-Chowr'
Now and then the bird varied its song
| by reversing the order of phrases. II
would cry with sweet ringing resonance
pause followed by Amelia or Pretty
Amelia" But the song was always some
| combination of the phrases l have named
| | have often tried to make English of
| the impassioned, checking melody of the
| bobolink, whose flute seems overfull of
music, so that the notes trip over each
| others heels as they rush out. But the
| birds language is to rapid for distinct
| enunciatiOn in any tongue. He is like a
| feathered Demosthenes, with pebbles in
| his mouth. But fortunately, there is no
| other strain like his in all birddom, so
| that Ii does not need translation in order
that the bird student may know it.
/ fn1 e n Nlr4 Of Tral
| birds whose note there is no installing.
! Not much of a singer is he to be sure,
with his dry, crisp two-syllabled phrase,
But you may know him, so 20 speak, by
his destination, since all summer long he
| announces, with curiously positive fulfil
| ity that he is for Quebec, Quebec-a city
| he viii never e,since early in October he
IS of for climate very different from that
OF Canada.
rich and positive song that is easily
| phraseI There. Is a reedlike quality in
| it, resembling the tone of a clarinet, and
| when the bird sits in the fork of a. sway
| ing alder in some rank swamp with his
| red shoulders flashing in the sun, and
! cries, "A romp for me. romp for mel"
YOU cannot easily mistake his identity.
| But there is often such chorus of these
! gregarious and sociable birds that the in
dividual notes are quite lost track of, and
you can hear nothing but rich potpourri
of sound like disorderly assemblage of
| contraltoS
The Baltimore oriole has a fine. clear
note, but his song is of little variety. He
| sits in an elm tree near his pendent nest
where the hidden female broods her eggs,
| and repeats, ''Chuckie, chucke, chuckie,'
| all the beautiful June day, One wishes
| those exquisite notes could be prolonged
| into song of greater extent. Yet even
| in their persistent mOnotOny they add an
| inexpressble charm to the soft. fragrant
air and blue skies of early summer,
Our night singer, the whippoorwill, re-
peats phrase which no one can mistake.
| / do not see how any one could imagine
| other syllables for l. than those which
have given the bird its name. Yet there
are certain eLded or obscured syLables
| in the song that are dstingushable only
| when the bird is singing near at hand
| rough breathings, as il were, which,
find, many students of bird language have
| never heard at ALE While camping in
| the woods have often heard the whip
| yards of my lean-to and have marked
| without difficulty the grace notes in it's
song. In its completeness the whippoor-
| wills lay goes as follows: whip (ahl-
| poor-wil (ah)." The whip" and will
are the two accented notes of the song
and after each of them the bird seems au-
dibly 10 catch its breath in a quick, aspir-
| ant tah." The effect TO one who has
never heard II before, it very peculiar and
The white-throated sparrow gets it's
common name OpeaDody bifd) from Is plain
federation of the syllables pea body"
There are also two slight initial syllables
in the strain, which one writer ON birds
likens 20 "ee-e," giving in all five sy.la-
bles TO the song or phrase. The beginner
will have little trouble in naming this
| sparrow from it's note.
The first note of the bluebird's song cor
responds 10 the first syllable of its name
a clear, smooth, open whistle. like ''b-lo-
| 90" Then there are TWO shorter sylla-
. b.es, like ALLY" The song is of sngu-
larly sweet quality, but meager Indeed
many of the birds which are accounted
our. favorite songsters have really very
slight songs Il is the quality rather than
the quantity of their vocal performance
| that gives them pre-emiuence.