Archaic Dialect of Chaffinch, Fringilla coelebs (Passeriformes, Fringillidae), Song in the Lower-Dnipro Area (South Ukraine) and Its Territorial Relations

Archaic song dialect of Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs Linnaeus, 1758) is located in the Lower-Dnipro Area. To describe it, we recorded 11673 songs of 2008 males from 43 localities in Southern Ukraine during 2004–2015. This dialect has compound spatial structure and connects with other dialects forming a well developed contact area with them. Its core was located in old forests of the lower stream of the Dnipro River. It has spread from them to the new forests in their outskirts. The complex is separated at dialect level in the cluster analysis. It includes considerable number of original song types. Their elements and structure demonstrate archaic features similar to those of other southern complexes but more modern than the old Carpathian and Danube dialects. It occupies the intermediate position between them and modern dialects of the Forest and Wood-and-Steppe Ukraine by the structure of song and is similar to the dialect of Crimean Chaffinch and the song complex of South-Eastern Ukraine.

Hesiodic Poetics

In terms of poetics, the contest between Hesiod and Homer seems simultaneously natural and surprising: natural because both of them composed in the artificial “song dialect” and highly formulaic medium of epea, and surprising because Homer’s long, heroic poetry differed so greatly in voice, theme, length, structure, and style from Hesiod’s much shorter, catalogic narrative poetry or from his didactic poetry. This chapter examines Hesiod’s poetry alongside Homer’s in terms of voice and theme, length and form, and style and genealogical lists. With examples from both singers, I propose that it may be a stylistic feature of catalogic poetry to interweave the personified names in a list with the corresponding lowercase words (nouns, verbs, adjectives) in the surrounding narrative. I also propose that, to a greater extent than Homer, Hesiod, with his fondness for word play and etymological punning, draws attention upon individual words.

Songs and Sexual Responses of Female White-Crowned Sparrows (Zonotrichia Leucophrys) From a Mixed-Dialect Population

Some researchers have suggested that female songbirds mate with males singing local song types in preference to males singing dialects from more distant populations. Such behaviour might promote genetic isolation among dialect populations. We studied captive female white-crowned sparrows (Zonotrichia leucophrys) from a population in which two song types were equally common, as a model for behaviour at dialect boundaries. Subjects were captured as adults, and the song type of the mate of each was known. Treated with estradiol, females gave sexual displays in response to playback of conspecific male song. As a group, they solicited no more strongly to either local song type, suggesting that males singing either local song type should be able to attract mates. Individuals solicited no more strongly to their mate's song type than to the other local song type. This suggests that strength of response of captive females to song playback may not accurately reflect the behaviour of free-living individuals. Subjects were also treated with testosterone to induce singing. Individuals sang their mates' song type more often than expected by chance. Given that female white-crowned sparrows in this population do not consistently choose mates of one song type, we develop the argument that females learn, for performance, the song type of their first mate. However, the type of song learned for performance appears unlikely to restrict their subsequent mate choice decisions. Our results suggest that female white-crowned sparrows do not base their choice of mates on dialectal variation in male song, and that it is unlikely that mate choice decisions based on song dialect promote the genetic isolation of dialect populations.