4 Bird - Lore 



cadences it gradually fell in pitch and lost volume till it died out, as with loss 

 of breath. This is the "Jilguero" of the natives, while unicolor is known as 

 "Clarin." Distinguished from these as "jilguero de la tierra" are the wrens of the 

 genus Leucolehis, which have a way of singing at your very feet, hidden under 

 the ferns and low-growing soft plants of earth. Theirs too, are violin tones, and, 

 though the songs are not rare, the singer is seldom seen, however patiently you 

 search or wait for him in the mosquito-ridden air of his dripping haunts. It has 

 always seemed a mystery to me how these little birds of the cloud-forest keep 

 dry. They are, indeed, the only dry thing you would encounter in a week's 

 hunt, for overhead all is oozing water, all the leaves are shiny- wet, and under 

 foot is soaking, rotting vegetable mold or deep muddy ooze, that frequently 

 lets you in over your boot-tops. 



In the same forests that shelter the Tinamou and Solitaire dwell the 

 evasive and ventriloquistic Woodpartridges (Odontophorus) . These are richly 

 garbed in velvety, rotten-wood colors, with all the minute moth-like pattern 

 of Whip-poor-wills. But wonderful as is their coat, it is their vocal perfor- 

 mance that gives them real distinction, for besides the familiar Partridge 

 clucking and pipping, heard only at close range and therefore seldom, they 

 possess a loud rollicking call that may be heard a mile or more across the 

 forested course of a mountain river. 



Once, while I was pussy-footing along a little water trail in the hope of 

 again seeing a Golden-headed Trogon, I was congealed for the moment by a 

 loud, explosive alarm, at the end of a fallen and rottening bole that lay just 

 before me. "Kivelry, cavalry, kivelry, cavalry, pt' , pt' , pt' , t' t' t' t, and up 

 popped a brown velvet bird, called once more and dropped, already running, 

 on the other side of the log. The call, at close range, had a rooster-like 

 quality not noticeable in the distance, and I was surprised to see that the 

 whole complicated and rapid performance was the work of one bird. 



Perhaps it is a sort of statute of limitations that makes us constantly com- 

 pare new birdsongs with familiar ones at home; — perhaps it is the paucity of 

 our language that renders description almost futile. But occasionally a resem- 

 blance is so striking that no alternative suggests itself. Sweltering in the heat 

 and glare of the Andean foothills, veins throbbing with the exertion of the 

 climbing hunt, exhaustion screaming for a let-up, and temper getting thin, 

 something turns over inside one when, of a sudden, comes the cheery, old-home 

 'Bob-white' of the little crested Eupsychorfyx Quail. Appearances would never 

 suggest the close relationship, but this little fellow, three thousand miles from 

 home, says 'Bob-white' without a trace of accent, striking a primitive chord 

 that does queer things, for the moment, to the inner you, caught unawares! 



