vol. xxxin 



1915 



Kennard, On the Trail of the Ivory-bill. a 



The next day, immediately after breakfast, the bird again ap- 

 peared in the grove and from 8.20 till 8.40 A. M. clung to the side 

 of a cabbage palm about fifteen feet up, and only about fifty feet 

 from where Tom and I were hiding. She simply clung there 

 uttering her call note, often accompanied by an upward and for- 

 ward movement of her head, and sometimes by a sudden slight 

 movement of her wings. 



The note was entirely different from anything I had ever heard, 

 and reminded me of one of those children's toys that one squeezes, 

 or better still a child's tin trumpet, for the note had rather a metal- 

 lic ring. It was uttered at intervals, averaging about one second 

 apart, though sometimes longer; once, twice, thrice or more in 

 succession. Later in the day when the bird was hitching up the 

 side of a tree, I counted one hundred and seventy-four calls in four 

 minutes. 



Audubon says that the note resembles " the false high note of a 

 clarinet," while Wilson describes it thus: "His common note, 

 repeated every three or four seconds, very much resembles the tone 

 of a trumpet or the high note of a clarinet, and can plainly be 

 distinguished at a distance of half a mile, seeming to be immediately 

 at hand; though perhaps more than a hundred yards off. This 

 it utters while mounting along the trunk or digging into it." A 

 good description of the note, and its ventriloquial peculiarities. 



At 8.40 A. M. the bird flew north, down into the swamp. Tom 

 followed her through the jungle, while I kept watch in the grove, 

 either for her return or the possible advent of her mate. She fed 

 in the swamp quietly until 9.20, when she again started calling, 

 and kept it up until 9.50 A. M., when she flew off north, further 

 into the swamp, where we lost her. At 11.05 A. M. the bird again 

 appeared at the edge of the jungle, and kept up her calling until 

 2 P. M., when we went back to camp for lunch. At 3. P. M. we 

 returned, this time accompanied by Peter, and though the three 

 of us spent the rest of the day beating about the swamp, we were 

 unable to find any trace of the bird. 



From now on there was always one of us on the watch in the 

 grove for the Ivory-bill; while the other two spent their time 

 cruising the adjoining country. On February 23, at 5.50 A. M. 

 Tom heard a bird call three times from the cypress swamp south- 



