The home of my childhood and early youth nestles in one of the gems of woodland which are so characteristic of the rolling prairies of central Iowa. This hundred-acre grove covers five main hills, with their valleys and the lesser runs which divide each of the five hills into two, three, or four lesser hills. The hills radiate in a semicircle to the north and west from the height on which the old home stands, rolling away to the creek which bathes their feet. Here are tall, heavy woods, without underbrush, covering the north slopes; lower, more open woods with patches of plum, and wild crab apple trees, with some hazel brush on all lower slopes of the hills; and finally a liberal fringe of low, brushy trees--hawthorn, plum and crab apple trees--and dense hazel brush on the uplands and on lower lands away from the creek. This dense growth also fringes the county road which extends from end to end of the grove, and it was from this roadside that towhee first heralded his arrival from the south, during the bright days of late March or early April. Later, when the frost had left the ground, and his mate was growing anxious to be selecting a nesting-place, he might be seen on the topmost twig of one of the taller small trees in every brushy place on every hillside. I have sometimes wondered if the towhee household did not have some disagreement about the family name, for the male, from his elevated perch loudly calls _towhee-e-e-e_, while his spouse on the ground below no less vigorously reiterates _che-wink_. But if danger seems to threaten his lordship quickly descends to join his mate in earnest warning that this small bit of earth belongs by right of discovery to che-wink. How earnestly both birds emphasize their claim by the nervous fluff of the short, stiff wings and the quick spreading of the long tail, as if the large patches of white at its end would startle the intruder away. But the male bird does not always confine himself to the iteration of the name he seems to love so well. Instead of the single first syllable there may be two or even three, no two in the same pitch. It has been a surprise to me that persons unfamiliar with the towhee's song do not realize that the two parts proceed from the same bird. To them the first part seems to resemble some part of the wood thrush's song and the last part--the _he-e-e-e_--the rattle of downy woodpecker. My ear persistently renders the whole song, _towhee-e-e-e_, or _towhe-hee-e-e-e-e_, or _O towhe-he-e-e-e-e-e_. Others render it _chuck burr pilla-will-a-will_. But towhee is not limited to this variety of vocalization. Besides the abbreviation of his _che-wink_ alarm note to _swink_, or even _wink_, and a _chuck, chuck_, when the nest is threatened, he sometimes sings a rarely beautiful ditty which is totally unlike any of his other performances. I have heard it only shortly after his arrival from the south, before his mate had joined him, and have tried in vain to describe it.