THE ROMANCE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



covered with a growth of gigantic timber; and 

 here, as soon as evening draws on, and mankind 

 retire to rest, he sends forth such sounds as seem 

 scarcely to belong to this world, startling the 

 solitary pilgrim as he slumbers by his forest fire, 



1 Making night hideous. 1 



Along the mountainous shores of the Ohio, and 

 amidst the deep forests of Indiana, alone, and 

 reposing in the woods, this ghostly watchman 

 has frequently warned me of the approach of 

 morning, and amused me with his singular ex- 

 clamations, sometimes sweeping down and around 

 my fire, uttering a loud and sudden 'Waugh 0! 

 Waugh 0!' sufficient to have alarmed a whole 

 garrison. He has other nocturnal solos, no less 

 melodious, one of which very strikingly resembles 

 the half-suppressed screams of a person suffocat- 

 ing, or throttled, and cannot fail of being exceed- 

 ingly entertaining to a lonely benighted traveller, 

 in the midst of an Indian wilderness."* 



I have myself heard the startling call of this 

 fine night-fowl in the Southern States, when, in 

 penetrating through the swamps, covered with 

 gigantic beeches and sycamores, entwined and 

 tangled by the various species of briers and vines 

 that hang in festoons from the trees, and amidst 

 the evergreen bushes of the hystrix fan-palm, this 

 "ghostly watchman" lifts up his hollow voice like 

 a sentinel challenging the intruder. Through the 

 afternoon, and especially as day wanes into even- 

 ing, they may be heard from all quarters of the 

 swamps; and in the deep solitude and general 

 silence of these gloomy recesses, the cry is pecu- 

 liarly startling. "Hoi oho! oho! waugh ho!" is 

 his call; the last syllable uttered with particular 



* Amer. Ornithol., i. p. 100. 

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