108 THE OLD SUGAR MILL. 



tesque. This, as well as I can describe it, 

 is what the bird was doing. He opened his 

 bill, set it, as it were, wide apart, and 

 holding it thus, emitted four or five rather 

 long and very loud grating, shrikish notes ; 

 then instantly shook his wings with an ex- 

 traordinary flapping noise, and followed that 

 with several highly curious and startling 

 cries, the concluding one of which sometimes 

 suggested the cackle of a robin. All this 

 he repeated again and again with the utmost 

 fervor. He could not have been more en- 

 thusiastic if he had been making the sweet- 

 est music in the world. And I confess that 

 I thought he had reason to be proud of 

 his work. The introduction of wing-made 

 sounds in the middle of a vocal performance 

 was of itself a stroke of something like 

 genius. It put me in mind of the firing of 

 cannons as an accompaniment to the Anvil 

 Chorus. Why should a creature of such 

 gifts be named for his bodily dimensions, or 

 the shape of his tail ? Why not Quiscalus 

 gilmorius, Gilmore's grackle ? 



That the sounds were wing-made I had 

 no thought of questioning. I had seen the 

 thing done, seen it and heard it ; and 



