Impressions of the Voices of Tropical Birds 



425 



As it was, I had to 'foot-feel' my way for the last part of the trail, as night 

 caught me before I reached the clearing. This call is hard to describe. It was 

 not at all 'gobbly,' like a Turkey's voice, but was a loud siren call, which the 

 natives interpret by their name for the bird, 'Burria,' — with the r's strongly 

 trilled. It rolls up a full octave, sustains a second, and rolls down again. I 

 think it would carry across the shadowed valleys in the still sunset forests for 

 a mile at least, and is fully as loud as any answer a strong-lunged boy could 

 yell back. 



The little Guans of the genus Ortalis, the Chachalacas, have also a fine 

 sensation saved up for the eager naturalist who has not heard them before. 



SPURWINGS, JACANAS, AND CRESTED SCREAMER 



The male, with his elongated and convoluted windpipe, has the louder and 

 rougher cry, which, by virtue of the longer instrument to trumpet through 

 is an exact octave lower than that of his normally equipped mate. 0. vetula, 

 from Mexico, says quite plainly 'Cha-cha-lac'-ca. Cha-cha-lac'-ca,' or, as the 

 Mexicans more phonetically spell it, 'Guacharra'ca.' It has a very human 

 quality of voice, and sounds nearly as loud at a quarter of a mile as it does 

 at a hundred yards. The Colombian species heard in the Magdalena Valley 

 seemed, to my ear, to screech 'aqua-dock.' The various members of a calling 

 flock keep time, roughly, according to sex. They are apt to call from up on 

 the mountain-sides or in ravines, when the rebounding echoes complicate and 

 9,ugment the chorus immensely. 



