Birds of Indiana. 709 



large droves of forty or fifty to several hundred. They frequent 

 swampy ground, but throughout the southern part of the State I have 

 usually found them most abundant upon the poorly drained and wet 

 meadows, through the month of April. 



In tlie Whitewater Valley they were the most abundant I ever saw 

 them the spring of 1881. Their unusual abundance throughout the 

 Wabash Valley was noted in the spring of 1894. 



They go into the Arctic regions to breed. Mr. Nelson found them 

 breeding in Alaska at the mouth of the Yukon Eiver, and Mr. Mur- 

 dock at Point Barrow. The former gives a bit of his experience with 

 these birds on an island in the Yukon delta the last of May, 1879. 

 On the night of May 24th as he lay wrapped in his blanket with the 

 tent flap raised, he says: "As my eyelids began to droop and the scene 

 to become indistinct, suddenly a low, hollow, booming note struck 

 my ear, and sent my thoughts back to a spring morning in northern 

 Illinois, and to the loud vibrating tones of the prairie chickens. 

 Again the sound came nearer and more distinct, and with an effort I 

 brought myself back to the- reality of my position, and resting upon 

 one elbow listened; a few seconds passed and again arose the note; a 

 moment later, and, gun in hand, I stood outside the tent. The open 

 flat extended away on all sides, ^^dth apparently not a living creature 

 near. Once again the note was repeated close by, and a glance re- 

 vealed its author. Standing on one leg in the thin grasses ten or fif- 

 teen yards from me, with its throat inflated until it was as large as 

 the rest of the bird, was a male A. maculata. The note is deep, hollow, 

 and resonant, but at the same time liquid and musical, and may be 

 represented by a repetition of the syllables too-u, too-u, too-u, too-u, 

 too-u, too-u, too-u, too-u. Before the bird utters these notes it fllls 

 its oesophagus with air to such an extent that the breast and throat 

 are inflated to twice or more its natural size, and the great air sack 

 thus formed gives the peculiar resonant quality to the note. At times 

 the male rises to twenty or thirty yards in the air and inflating its 

 throat glides down to the ground with its sack hanging below. Again 

 he crones back and forth in front of the female, pulfing his breast out 

 and bowing from side to side, running here and there as if intoxicated 

 with passion. Whenever he pursues his love-making, his rather low 

 but pervading note swells and dies in musical cadences, which form 

 a striking part in the great bird chorus heard at this season of the 

 year, in the north. The Eskimo name indicates that its notes are 

 like those of the Walrus, hence the term "Walrus-talker." (N. H. 

 Coll. in Alaska, pp. 108, 109). 



