Image from the Biodiversity Heritage Library.
Contributed by Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California, Berkeley.
| www.biodiversitylibrary.org
Transcription
which the thrasher call seemed to have come. There were very few birds
to be seen anywhere. I got my 22 calibre rifle and went on a prowl
about the grounds. A large white and yellow cat was soon located and
deprived permanently of further interest in the bird world. When I
finally finished my round at the glade it was full of birds: the two
thrashers, the two kinds of towhees, the wren tits, fox, song, golden
crowned and Gambel ( or Nuttall) sparrows, plain titmice and in the
surrounding trees were scores of robins and several varied thrushes,
purple and house finches; but no wrens seen or heard. The birds in
the glade, especially the wrentits, spotted towhees, plain titmice
and song sparrows were very noisy about something, though I could see
no enemy. The thrashers were making a long draw-out sibilant sound that
was different from anything that I have heard from them before, but
came promptly for worms after examining the sky carefully, Brownie to
sit on my knee uttering the first cat-like meowing sounds heard
from him for some time (possibly to let me know that he was aware of
the
the passing of cat a few minutes earlier!) B&G then retired to the
bushes some few feet apart and continued to exchange the peculiar
call first noted. I do not know its significance. Finally conditions
in the glade became normal. It appeared to me that the birds were
here all of the time that their enemies were present; but concealed,
appearing only when the danger had passed and that their noisiness in
might be
the glade merely an expression of their excitement and relief.
On the other hand, the thrashers seemed to be the focus of the
sensation and may have caused it by their new and unusually persistent
call. The motive prompting this call is not clear, as the two birds
were not observed to be especially concerned with or about each other.
On finishing this note, I went to the glade again, on the way
noting the presence of juncos, hermit thrushes, jays and quail. A half
dozen green-backed goldfinches were bathing and the wren flew out of