haps slightly better success. At first they are able to pipe only a
syllable or two before their voices break. After a while they succeed
in carrying the tune for a respectable little run, but sooner or later
their voices will go all to pieces or slide up into a falsetto, making
another pause necessary. By and by, however, after much practice, they
gain perfect vocal control, and are able to sustain their songs for a
long time without a mishap. When the voice of the rehearsing bird
breaks, it apparently runs too high in the scale for the bird's
register, just as the voice of a sixteen-year-old boy is apt to do, to
his own confusion and the amusement of his friends.

[Illustration: Cardinal]

Another fact about robin music may be of interest to those who have not
observed it. In the early spring these birds are extremely lyrical,
that being their season of courtship; then will follow a few weeks of
comparative silence--the time when there are little ones in need of
parental care. At this period the husbands, it would seem, are either
too busy or too wary to sing a great deal. But now note: When the
youngsters have flown from the nest and are able to take care of
themselves, the silence in robindom is again broken, and there is a
flood-tide of melody from early morning till eventide. The second
lyrical period lasts until another nest has been built and another
clutch of eggs has been hatched, when the choralists again relapse into
comparative silence.

Since coming back to Ohio, I imagine that the eastern robins are better
singers than their western relatives. Their voices, to my ear, are
clearer and more ringing, less apt to break into a squeak at the top of
their register, and there is more variety of expression as well as
greater facility in managing the technique. I think this is not all
fancy, yet I would not speak with the assurance of the dogmatist.

In the good Jayhawker state the orchard orioles are more abundant than
they are in the eastern and northeastern part of the state of Ohio.
Indeed, the range of this species is more southerly than that of their
congeners, the Baltimore orioles. In their proper latitude no birds,
or at least few of them, are more lavish of their melody than the
orchard orioles. What a ringing voice the oriole possesses! His song
has a saucy note of challenge running through it, and also a human
intonation that makes it rarely attractive. All day long the male
sings his