1920 J Nichols, Limicoline Voices. boo 



and it has acquired greater dissimilarity of calls. The specialized 

 notes of the Greater are largely variations of the flight-note stem, 

 which occurs in its simplest form in the Lesser, not its primitive 

 form, however, if such is as we suppose, polysyllabic. The habits 

 of the Lesser are less adaptively specialized in detail than those 

 of the Greater, yet more specialized taken as a whole, a condition 

 paralleled by the respective notes of the two. 



In the majority of cases there is no difficulty in identifying 

 either Yellow-legs with certainty from its ordinary louder notes; 

 except that the analogous as well as homologous "whew whew" 

 common with both and the rare occasions when the Greater uses 

 a single "whew," require a keen ear to detect the difference in 

 quality of voice. Nevertheless, just this last year (1919) there 

 have been two instances in the field on Long Island, where with a 

 little less training my ear would have assigned Lesser Yellow-legs 

 calls to the other species. In both instances, the first in May, 

 the second in late September, a small number of the Lesser Yellow- 

 legs were associated with a larger number of the Greater, reversing 

 the ordinary condition. My suspicions that in default of its own 

 kind the Lesser was endeavoring to copy the calls of the other with 

 which it was associated, aroused by the first observation, which 

 was unsatisfactory, were confirmed by the second, a thoroughly 

 satisfactory one. A flock of birds containing a couple of Lesser 

 and perhaps five Greater Yellow-legs was flushed by a Marsh 

 Hawk from a pool where my decoys were also placed. All went 

 off to the north with the exception of one Lesser which promptly 

 returned and alighted with the decoys. It called "whew" and 

 "eep!" repeatedly, and flushed again with an unloud Jack Cur- 

 lew-like series, all notes characteristic of the Lesser, and highly 

 appropriate to the circumstances, then followed the direction the 

 other birds had taken. Its notes now should have been a some- 

 what more abrupt "whew" or "whew-hip," or short "kip"s, 

 had it been recently associating in flocks of its own kind, but to 

 my astonishment they were "whew-whew" and " whew-whew- 

 whew," trisyllabic! not at all abrupt and unusually loud for the 

 Lesser; I think it was not my imagination which made them sound 

 strained. The situation was not without its humorous side as a 

 Greater Yellow-legs under similar circumstances would have been 



