1 

 196 WOOD NOTES WILD. 



BELL-BIRD. Contin. 



toll, and then a pause again, and then a toll, and again a pause. Then he 

 is silent for six or eight minutes, and then another toll, and so on. 



" Acteon would stop in mid chase, Maria would defer her evening song, 

 and Orpheus himself would drop his lute to listen to him, so sweet, so novel 

 and romantic is the toll of the pretty snow-white campanero. He is never 

 seen to feed with the other cotingas, nor is it known in what part of Guiana 

 he makes his nest/' Waterton, C.: Wanderings in South America (London, 

 1879), p. 180-181. 



See aho Funk, N : Glockengelaute im Walde. ( Gartenlaube, 1875, pp. 

 527-530.) Gosse, P. H : Romance of Nat. Hist. pp. 21-22. 



Ruffed Grouse. (See p. 92.) 



" Audubon supports me on the night-hawk booming ; 

 but says the partridge drums on his breast. I am alone 



on this point." C., S. P., in a letter dated February, 1888. 



It is not strange that our author believed himself alone 

 on this point. A fact it is that the great names, with 

 hardly an exception, are ranged against him. Darwin 

 quotes only the old orthodox " body " and " log " reporters. 

 Dr. Coues, however, comes to a contrary conclusion. 



" Early in spring, the male begins ' drumming ' ; this habit is peculiar to 

 this species, and is probably familiar to all persons who have passed much 

 of their time in the woods. 



" I have heard this drumming as early as February, and as late as 

 September ; but usually it is not heard much before the first of April. 

 The bird resorts to a fallen trunk of a tree or log, and while strutting 

 like the male turkey, beats his wings against his sides and the log with 

 considerable force. 



" This produces a hollow drumming noise that may be heard to a con- 

 siderable distance ; it commences very slowly, and after a few strokes, 

 gradually increases in velocity, and terminates with a rolling beat very 

 similar to the roll of a drum. 



" I know not by what law of acoustics, but this drumming is peculiar in 

 sounding equally as loud at a considerable distance off as within a few 



