.THE. C9B.OR Volume V July=August, 1903 Number Call Notes of the Bush-Tit BY ,JOSEPH GRINNELL (Read before the A. O. U--Cooper Club Convention, May I6, i9o3) URING three-fourths of the year the California bush-tits forage about in flocks..These ba ?ds may consist of as many as thirty individuals, but ge n- erally there are from fifteen to twenty. Although we call themflocks,. they are not such in the sense that blackbirds or linnets form flocks; tbr the bush-tits never bunch together and.mount high in air to take a prolonged-flight. But they form a loitering company, scattered among several scrub-oaks or brush-clumps. There may be .a general onward movement, for if a person locates himself in the midst of the restlessdrove, in a few minutes they will have almost all gone off in some particular direction. A few stragglers sometimes forget themselves, and sud- denly feeling lost, fly helter-skelter after the main company with excited calls. Evidently there are some, perhaps two or three adults, who take the initiative, and involuntarily direct the movements of the younger or more timid individuals which follow along after. During such slowly moving excursions, each individual is rapidly gleaning throagh the foliage, assuming all possible attitudes in its search for tiny insects among leaves and twigs. The attention of each is on himself as a usual thing, but each is continually uttering a faint but characteristic simple loca- tion-note, a note of all's-well which indicates safety and also the whereabouts of the main bocly to stragglers, and each individual to any other. At times, especially towards evening, the flocks bect?me more restless and move along from bush to bush and tree to tree much more rapidly than when feed- ing, the birds straggling hurriedly after each other in irregular succession. Dur- ing these hurried cross-country excursions, the simple location-notes are pronounced louder and are interlarded at frequent intervals with a shrill quavering note. The faster the band travels, the louder and more oft-repeated becomes these all-import-
