VOICES OF TROPICAL BIRDS FUERTES. 323 



young; probabty a family. Yet the terrible noise that issued prin- 

 cipally from the bearded and swollen throat of the old male seemed 

 really to make the atmosphere quake. As I stood below he would 

 rush doAvn toward me, bellowing outrageously, and I thought it took 

 some fortitude at first to stand by till he retreated again. The noise, 

 as I analyzed it at the time, was a deep, throaty, bass roar, with 

 something of the quality of grunting pigs, or the barking bellow of 

 a bull alligator, or an ostrich. Accompanying this major sound was 

 a weird, crooning sort of wail, probably the contribution of the 

 female or young, or both. The noise was fully as loud as the full- 

 throated roaring of lions, and that it has marvelous carrying power 

 was frequently attested when we heard it from the far side of some 

 of the great Andean valleys as we wound our tortuous way across 

 the Central Cordillera. This is, of course, in no sense a bird voice, 

 yet it is by far the most striking sound in the American tropics, 

 and I should feel that I had done the subject slight justice if I did 

 not at least try to make it recognizable to those who may read these 

 papers and some day hear for themselves this astonishing sound. 



In bringing to a close this series of impressions it must not be 

 thought that they cover the field of tropical-bird music. They form, 

 indeed, the merest nucleus on which to build. 



