538 Nichols, Limicoline Voices. [oct 



Ruddy Turnstone ( Armaria interpres morinella). The com- 

 mon flight-note of the Turnstone is a low cackle. This note is not 

 very broadly used as flight-notes go, being most common from 

 birds that are leaving the vicinity. A much rarer loud plover- 

 like "kik-kyu" I have heard from a bird when coming to decoys 

 or flying along the edge of favorable meadows. 



•The above is a pretty comprehensive resume of the calls of the 

 different species as definitely noted to date. Attempts tc render 

 each call by letters are at best unsatisfactory and probably no two 

 people would do so in a like manner, but a field student of the birds 

 will in most cases have no difficulty in following this classification 

 of notes, and it is my only way to give any idea of their variety 

 and character. It should be understood that it is only in the 

 majority of cases that the calls jorrespond to circumstances to 

 which they are assigned. No more could be expected in view of 

 the doubtless rapidly changing psychic processes of the birds, of 

 which we know nothing. The amount to which each note varies, 

 and they vary into one another, should not be lost sight of. In 

 the writer's opinion comparatively little of the birds' "vocabulary" 

 is lost, however, by incomplete knowledge of these variations, 

 whereas a great deal is lost by imperfect differentiation of inflec- 

 tion and tone His hypothesis is that the form of the call, limited 

 by the species to which the bird belongs, is correlated with num- 

 bers, environment and behaviour, especially present but also 

 past or future; that its quality depends largely on emotion or 

 state of mind, as alarm or confidence, restlessness, sociability, etc., 

 etc. Less indication than presupposed, has been found of distinct 

 and dissimilar calls corresponding to emotional states. A "note 

 of alarm" has proved particularly elusive. Alarm, easily intro- 

 duced experimentally, shows as determinant of the bird's actions, 

 but the accompanying notes (if any) are such as accompany 

 similar actions when it is obviously not alarmed. 



One other thing is very striking; birds in the air are extremely 

 sensitive to the calls of others on the ground, and only in a less 

 degree to imitations of them. Birds on the ground are equally 

 sensitive to the calls of others in the air, but pay astonishingly 

 little attention to any imitated notes. 



