Identifier: birdlifeguide00chap (find matches)
Title: Bird-life; a guide to the study of our common birds
Year: 1898 (1890s)
Authors: Chapman, Frank M. (Frank Michler), 1864-1945 Seton, Ernest Thompson, 1860-1946
Subjects: Birds -- United States
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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With it he woos his mate andgives voice to the joyousness of nesting time. In someinstances vocal music may be replaced by instrumental,as in the case of the drumming wing-beat of the Grouse,or the bill-tattoo of the Woodpeckers, both of which areanalogous to song. The season of song corresponds more or less closelywith the mating season, though some species begin tosing long before their courting days are near. Othersmay sing to some extent throughout the year, but thereal song period is in the spring. Many birds have a second song period immediatelyafter the completion of their postbreeding molt, but itusually lasts only for a few days, and is in no sense com-parable to the true season of song. This is heralded bythe Song Sparrow, whose sweet chant, late in February, *See Witchell, The Evolution of Bird Song (Macmillan Co.).Bicl^nell, A Study of the Singing of Our Birds; The Aiik (New Yorkcity), vol. i, 1884, pp. 60-71, 12G-140, 209-218, 322-332; vol. ii, 1885,pp. 144-154, 249-262.
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Plate XX. Page 110. SCREECH OWL. Length, 9-40 inches. Upper parts gray, or bright reddish brown, and black; under parts white, gray, or bright reddish brown, and black; eyes yellow. VOICE OF BIRDS. 63 is a most welcome promise of spring. Then follow theRobins, Blackbirds, and other migrants, until, late inMay, the great springtime chorus is at its height. The Bobolink is the first bird to desert the choir.We do not often hear him after July 5. Soon he is fol-lowed by the Yeery, and each day now shows some freshvacancy in the ranks of the feathered singers, until byAugust 5 we have left only the Wood Pewee, IndigoBunting, and Red-eyed Vireo—tireless songsters whofear neither midsummer nor midday heat. Call-Notes.—The call-notes of birds are even moreworthy of our attention than are their songs. Song isthe outburst of a special emotion ; call-notes form thelanguage of every day. Many of us are familiar withbirds songs, but who knows their every call-note andwho can tell us what each

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