108 THE OLD SUGAR MILL. 
tesque. This, as well as I can describe 1, 
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 
