The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-04-30
JoREES AND SUCH.
The Office OrnitholOGiSt Writes Cri'
teal Essay in Answer to "a Sub
scriber'S Questionable
JOree a Jim Dandy
WrenS and Cat
Birds.

Birds.
us Joree a Wren or is Wren a
| Joree?
Where does the Catbird come from
when he comes and where does the
| ,Catbird go when he goes?"
The subscriber who walked into the
office on Saturday and laid down a
| piece of paper on the desk of the "old
man" with the above questions writ
: ten out upon it, did so with the aSsur-
ance of the man who ten years ago
was wont to grab you by the collar on
the street and demand Indignantly
why is mouse when he SPINS"
But the valued subscriber did not
know about the ornithologist. A news
paper office is University and if a
man only sticks to one long enough he
will learn sufficiently about every
thing to impose on everybody except
| the specialists-and they don't count,
| because they can be imposed on about
anything except their speciality.
AS to question first, know then that,
far from being a wren, a JORGE IS a
yellow-bre Chat-Icteria Vir-
ens-sometimes called the ''polyGloU
chat" or yellow hooking bird llls
| home is more than half of North
America, and as far West as the
| plains. He is most common in the
Middle Atlantic States, is migratory in
| May and September and is in this
climate a resident for the entire sum-
mer.
The House Wren - TroglodyteS
Aedon-is also common over the
whole of the Eastern portion of North
| America from Manitoba to the Gulf,
is hardy little specimen and is put
down enormously in the books as be-
| ing uniformly migratory. AS matter
| of fact he can stand both cold and
| heat to remarkable extent and sang,
| for instance, in Raleigh back yards
| during the whole of the late severe
winter.
AS to a"Joree" being wren, there
were never two more different spe-
| cies. The Joree is to bird life about
| what a conglomerate of Mexican,
! Spanish Don" Italian and Japanese
would be to humanity. He is gaudy in
dress, vain in feathers, pompous in
| love, lyric in song and spectacular in
gymnastics.
The Wren, on the other hand, is Il
work-a- day citizen of the world. with
a stout heart, no special accomplish
| ments, but dependable to fault. He
| is business clean through and moves
about nervously after his daily bread.
His song is a business like perform
ance consisting of a series of high
notes going slowly up the scale from
the start and coming down very
quickly at the end only when the sim
ger is out of breath. He is about as
large as a big sized thumb, is ALL
brown has an acquisitiVe head and
bill and an impertinent tail, which
moves with the rapid motion Of the
! legs of a small man VINO has been sue
cessful in making money.
The Joree, however. is a stunt ar
fist who performs with dash, abandon
and consuming pride. He is always in
the air when he sings and is generally
turning somersaults when he is in the
air. A JOree will sit or the top OF
black berry bush and Groom to his mate
below until it occurs to him that
women folks like to be dazzled. Then
he will fly straight up, going like the
twists of q cork-screW for possibly
fifty feet. singing to beat the band
about anything or everything that
comes into his yellow streaKed head
his own song or that of anybody else s
that he thinks of-and at the top of
the flight he will give his tail a flirt,
begin turning" movement and de-
scend, still singing his plagiarsms,
while his body does d dozen somer
saults in ten seconds. Whereupon, at
the exact moment, he will catch on
his feet on the vine, still SWdying from
his departure, at the Identical place
from which he started out, and close
the performance by converting him.
self into a ventriloquist and scandal
izing the hooking bird by making him
sing apparently from Il mud hole in
the branch full fifty feet away. This
performance a we'll constituted JORGE
will repeat for ten hours in the day
for every five minutes and, if the night
be moonshiny, for six hours Of the
night as well, a time when the wren is
tucked up under the caves of the
wood-shed dreaming of sunrise and
worms.
The subscriber states that his place
maintains both wren and )ree.
but that in their songs he has got them
mixed. This is probably due to the
two facts that the wren has a new
note in the spring when he is making
love and that the JORGE in question
has probably taken to throwing up the
wrens amorous ditties to his face by
wanton limitations
As to the Catbird-Galcoscop
Carolinensis, of the mocking bird fam
lily and sometimes called the black
capped thrush-he can be found all
over North America East Of the Rock
les. His regular migrations are in May
and November but he is always on the
safe side about not showing up until
Spring have really came" Many peo-
pie keep on their flannelS till they see
him. TIe will stay all summer and
sometimes tarries too long in well
liked garden and gets frost-bitten. The
reason for this doubtless is that bis
migrationS are in short stages, he be-
ing either too lazy or too inqui5itiNe as
to sights along the route to ily long at
time. He comes from Spring and
Summer and goes back to the same
place. For instance the catbirds in
crease beyond production in the III
dian summer Of the South by reason
of accumulations of birds who have
found Northern summer homes get
ting too chilly. GRADUALLY they move
South. until deep winter SindS them in
Florida or Cuba, almost exclusively
While the whole can migrate5 from
The Northern temperate states III tn"
winter all do not leave the far South
ia Summer, this pr obahly arising from
tic instinct q migrate t. The place at
which they were raised.
How did the ornitholoSist come to
know all this? He caught it from Mr..
r. Gilbert Pearson. of the Audubon
Society, who visited the office one day
last winter asking editorial support
for a bill to make it a felony to suck
l. nrrrrcr TF %l,.@ hi. n IL