CHUCK-WILL'S-WIDOW 159 



The notes are clear-cut, insistent, and sharply enunciated with 

 the exception of the first syllable. There is a ringing quality about 

 them that is very striking, and one gets the impression of full- 

 voiced effort. The head is moved noticeably when the call is 

 uttered, and doubtless considerable muscular effort is put forth. 

 Some writers have termed the notes "doleful," "monotonous," and 

 "melancholy," but to me they have never seemed anything but sooth- 

 ing and dreamily satisfying. Charles Torrey Simpson (1920) says 

 that the chucks "make night hideous" with their "terrible chatter." 

 Thus do tastes differ ! 



When it arrives from its winter quarters the chuck is particularly 

 vociferous, and keeps this up until after the eggs are hatched. There 

 is then a cessation followed by some renewed activity before de- 

 parting for the south on the approach of fall. It must be very 

 susceptible to cool weather, for it does not remain even as far south 

 as Charleston until early in fall. The first part of September usually 

 sees it gone, although individuals linger longer than that. 



Besides the regular, self-naming call, the chuck has another note, 

 which is not well known and is very difficult to describe. It is not 

 the hissing sound uttered when the bird is caught or handled but 

 is given occasionally when about its hunting. Almost entirely, if 

 not entirely, it is a flight note ; at least I have never heard it when the 

 bird is sitting. It is inadequate to describe it as a "growl," and 

 yet that is the only word that seems to approach it. As one flies 

 by in the gloom, this note is heard, and it is an eerie, utterly indefi- 

 nite sound, possessing a strangely unearthly quality which impres- 

 ses one with wonder that it comes from a bird. 



It is seldom if ever referred to in the literature but some have 

 remarked upon it in correspondence to the writer. The late James 

 Henry Rice, Jr., of Brick House Plantation, Wiggins, S. C, once 

 had an army officer visiting him who remarked on this note, but 

 Mr. Rice himself, being very deaf, was not aware of it, though 

 he knew the chuck well. He asks, in a letter to Mr. Bent, whether 

 anyone has noted what he termed "that clucking sound." I should 

 hardly describe it as a "cluck" but it may impress some as such. 



One other note has been commented on |by those thoroughly 

 familiar with the chuck. It is often given just as the bird is flushed 

 and, like the one above, is very difficult to describe. It can be 

 interpreted as a "croak" perhaps, and Dr. Eugene E. Murphey 

 (MS.), of Augusta, Ga., calls it "froglike." His allusion to it, as 

 well as the utterances of the regular call as given in fall, is given 

 m a communication as follows : 



"I imagine most field ornithologists are familiar with the frog- 

 like croak that the bird makes when flushed, and I am inclined to 



