THE LEAST BITTERN 63 



anything I had ever seen a bird do before, I mar- 

 veled that his acrobatic powers had not made him 

 famous. 



The feathered gymnast's slender body or per- 

 haps one should say neck, for the bird is chiefly 

 neck and head seemed to be mounted on long stilts, 

 with the aid of which he waded rapidly through the 

 water, his head shooting in and out at each stride. 



The Least Bittern's notes appear to be less known 

 than his habits. Nuttall, that exceptionally keen- 

 eared bird student, was familiar with them, but 

 most writers have restricted themselves to the state- 

 ment that, when flushed, the bird utters a low qua, 

 while some have even said he was voiceless. 



I should not be in the least surprised to learn that 

 this uncanny inhabitant of the reeds had a call fully 

 as remarkable as the vocal performance of his large 

 relative, the American Bittern, but thus far in my 

 slight acquaintance with him he has been heard 

 to utter only four notes : A soft, low coo, slowly 

 repeated five or six times, and which is probably 

 the love song of the male ; an explosive alarm 

 note, quoh ; a hissing hah, with which the bird 

 threatens a disturber of its nest ; and a low tut-tut- 

 tut, apparently a protest against the same kind of 

 intrusion. 



It was the markedly dovelike coo which first in- 

 troduced me to this species. With William Brew- 

 ster I was at the Fresh Pond marshes, listening for 

 the repetition of some strange calls which had ex- 

 cited the curiosity of Cambridge ornithologists, and 

 which proved to belong to a Florida Gallinule,* 



* See Brewster, Auk, vol. viii, 1891, p. 1. 



