26 THE FLICKRR. 



— 7cakc-up. Missouri — cliccr. Illinois — flicker. Iowa — 

 kee'-yer. There are evidently answers to all calls and it is a 

 question whether one sex has a note not possessed by the 

 other. — J. Newton Baskett. During a calm day it may be 

 heard calling clapc nearly a mile to windward. — H. E. Miller. 



Conversational or Soliloquizing Notes. These are neither 

 calls nor songs and are evidently not intended for the ears of 

 the public, commonly a scann y, gurgling, almost involuntary 

 chvr-r-r-r as danger seems to threaten it when on the wing, or 

 when flushed from the ground or just before a-lighting, which 

 may be interpreted as a note of warning or announcement of 

 arrival according to the circumstances. I have heard a low 

 guttural zvho-dd as it endeavored to balance itself on a slender 

 branch immediately after arrival. At Wady Petra, Illinois, 

 an old male who spent three successive winters close at hand, 

 usually sat on the house roof for a time in the early morning. 

 On December 1st, '94, he uttered an odd gutteral call of huck- 

 a-woo'-ah or again onh' ivoo ivoo evidently for his own edifica- 

 tion. — Virginius H. Chase. At Croton Falls, New York, a 

 low and .soft a-claiipee belongs exclusively to the nesting 

 sea.son. — H. E. Miller. From Ponkapog, Mass., we have 

 another note : On September 12, '94, an adult and four young 

 flew on a tree overhead, uttering a soft measured .y/r-f;7' several 

 times. While making these notes they seemed to be in a sort 

 of ecstacy, holding the limb firmly, .spreading their tails, 

 drooping their wings, stretching their necks, pointing their 

 beaks upward and throwing their heads this way and that in 

 a quick, graceful manner, keeping perfect time to the notes. — 

 J. H. Bowles. 



Common or Cackling Song. This undergoes but few 

 modifications, being a .simple ka or cuh repeated more or less 

 rapidly from six to thirty-five or more times in a loud full 

 voice, rising and falling regularl}^ as the notes are inhaled or 

 exhaled. To correspondents in Massachu.setts and Michigan 

 its song sounds like ivet-wct-wet , while to others in the former 

 state it is yip-a-yip or ivoit-a-ivoit, and in Iowa Iiee-chu, re- 

 peated over and over again. Its song reminds me of that 

 occasionally emitted from the throat of our common domestic 

 hen, although the latter is a tame and feeble imitation in 

 comparison. It begins in Southern Penn.sylvania on the first 



