426 Bird - Lore 



Another noteworthy voice is the rolling cry of Ar amides, the big rusty- 

 colored Wood-rail. As dusk was falling around me on a forested mountain- 

 side, while working my way out to the trail, I was suddenly congealed by a 

 loud, rolling cry, hastily repeated three or four times. It sounded in front of 

 me, behind me, over me, and under me! I began to think it was all around me. 

 A loud hoot, then a rising, rolling trill — 'Oot- roo-ee-e-e-e- oot- roo-ee-e-e-.' 

 I found I could do it by 'pigeon- tooting' through my hands, so that the bird 

 came quite near, and thrilled me deeply. But it was too dark, and I knew not 

 where to look for it. After a few responses it slipped away, still a mystery; 

 but when I reached camp and imitated it for Mr. Cherrie, he at once recog- 

 nized it as Ar amides; and this diagnosis is his, not mine, for I never 

 had another opportunity to identify it. 



Among the lasting impressions that I have brought out of the tropics, cer- 

 tainly one of the most vivid is of the great, sultry, odorous and soundful 

 marshes of the Magdalena and Cauca Valleys. These treacherous reaches have 

 a fascination, and exert a call upon the novice-naturalist that is indeed likely 

 to get him into trouble. Everything that charms the senses in a northern 

 water-field is here multiplied. Plant-life is riot, insects accordingly swarm, 

 and many species of birds avail themselves of the easy food they furnish. The 

 allurements of a fragrant, shimmering sheet of placid water, with beds of 

 floating plants made gay with the delicately lovely Jacanas, fighting their 

 innocent battles, and displaying their lemon butterfly wings; the dignified 

 Spur-winged Plover that trot on the margins, or fly in noisy flocks, like Dutch 

 Lapwings, low over the surrounding pasture-lands; perhaps a bare snag, far 

 out in the deep marsh, all in glowing blossom with Roseate Spoonbills and 

 Snowy Herons; the loud clatter of the giant Kingfisher and the dry rasping 

 of his tiny 'Texas' cousin; statuesque Screamers, posing on an exposed bar; 

 the squealing whistles of the Tree-ducks dabbling and sunning themselves at 

 the edge of the hyacinths beds; — all these and a hundred other charms lure him 

 deeper and deeper into the marsh or into the lush reeds and papyrus beds that 

 form some of their margins. I shall not soon forget an hour spent in retriev- 

 ing an Everglade Kite in the great marsh at Calamar. Here the one pervasive 

 sound was the constant, irritating hum of the myriads of ravenous mosquitos. 

 Things were not helped by the discovery that I was soon on a false bottom, 

 made only of the suspended roots of the vegetation that rose ten feet above 

 me, so that I went through, and had to go the rest of the way on my knees, 

 up to my armpits in tepid water. As I had a gun and a glass to keep dry, this 

 was no joke, and I think that was the most miserable hour I ever went through. 

 At the end I was absolutely spent, and could only crawl out and lie down — 

 easy meat for the mosquitos — for another hour. But it had its recompenses. 

 Into the willow-like shrubbery over me came the beautiful little Yellow- 

 headed Blackbird of the tropics and sang his orchard-oriole song. Nearby, 

 Q|-eat-tailed Grackles squealed, piped and pointed their bills aloft in ^eir 



