Impressions of the Voices of Tropical Birds 



349 



breasted ones, have very characteristic calls, so like each other that I never 

 learned to distinguish the various species. They all sit quietly on some slender 

 perch or vine-stem, and do their rolling call ruk, ruk, uk, uk, uk, k, k, k, k, all 

 on the same note. Here again the tail seems to be indispensable to the per- 

 formance, and jerks sharply forward under the perch with each syllable. 

 More than once this motion became the index to the authorship of the strangely 

 pervasive and ventriloquistic sound. 



One other group of birds has this quiet fashion of softly hooting from some 

 low perch in the thicker and more watered parts of the forest. The curious 

 racket-tailed Motmots have what I call the most velvety of all bird notes. It 

 is usually a single short oot, pitched about five tones below where one can whistle. 

 This note is very gentle, though fairly loud, and I think that some persons who 

 do not hear low vibrations very well would often fail to notice it at a short 

 distance. Most of the natives have sound-names for Motmots, and the Maya 

 Indians of Yucatan call the brilliant little Eumomota "Toh," and, as an appre- 

 ciation of the interest, he has come to nest and roost familiarly in the age-long 

 deserted ruins of their former glory. 



Indeed, these mysterious, gentle, shy, little birds came to me, at least, to be 

 the living symbol of this great lost magnificence; for the present-day Mayas 

 know naught of the art and history of their great forefathers, whose temples 

 and beautiful buildings are now in utter oblivion and disuse, except as the 

 shelters and dwellings of little "Toh," the Motmot, and his soft hoot is the 

 only sound that ever issues from their carved portals. 



CANVASBACKS, CAYUGA LAKE, N. Y., FEB. i6, igia 

 Photographed by Francis Harper 



