48 Bird - Lore 



rare exceptions, only during the breeding season. The female when 

 anxious about her eggs or young also calls ki-ki-ki and sometimes kiu like a 

 Flicker. 



In the more open, grassy stretches of meadow, as well as among the 

 beds of cat-tail flags but seldom, if ever, in thickets of bushes, we also 

 hear, after the middle of April, mingling with the notes of Virginia 

 Rails and the din of countless frogs, the love song of the Carolina Rail, a 

 sweet, plaintive er-e given with a rising inflection and suggesting one of the 

 'scatter calls ' of the Quail. Such, at least, is its general effect at distances 

 of from fifty to two or three hundred yards, but very near at hand it 

 developes a somewhat harsh or strident quality and sounds more like ka-e, 

 while at the extreme limits of ear range one of the syllables is lost and the 

 other might be easily mistaken for the peep of a Pickering's hyla. This 

 note, repeated at short, regular intervals, many times in succession, is one 

 of the most frequent as well as pleasing voices of the marsh in the early 

 morning and just after sunset. It is also given intermittently at all hours 

 of the day, especially in cloudy weather, while it is often continued, practi- 

 cally without cessation, through the entire night. 



Equally characteristic of this season and even more attractive in quality 

 is what has been termed the ' whinny ' of the Carolina Rail. It consists of a 

 dozen or fifteen short whistles as sweet and clear in tone as a silver bell. 

 The first eight or ten are uttered very rapidly in an evenly descending scale, 

 the remaining ones more deliberately and in a uniform key. The whole 

 series is often followed by a varying number of harsher, more drawling notes 

 given at rather wide intervals. Although it is probable that the 'whinny' is 

 made by both sexes I have actually traced it only to the female. She uses 

 it, apparently, chiefly as a call to her mate, but I have also repeatedly heard 

 her give it just after I had left the immediate neighborhood of her nest, 

 seemingly as an expression of triumph or rejoicing at the discovery that her 

 eggs had not been molested. When especially anxious for their safety and 

 circling close about the human intruder she often utters a low whining 

 murmur closely resembling that which the Muskrat makes while pursuing 

 his mate and sometimes a cut-cut-cutta not unlike the song of the Virginia 

 Rail, but decidedly less loud and vibrant. In addition to all these notes 

 both sexes have a variety of short, sharp cries which they give when 

 startled by any sudden noise. 



Although the hylas and leopard frogs may be occasionally heard before 

 the close of March as well as frequently after the 1st of May they are 

 invariably most numerous — or rather vociferous — in April. The notes 

 of Pickering's hyla are pitched very high in the scale, but they are clear 

 and crisp rather than shrill, and the peep, peep, pee-e-eep of six or eight 

 individuals, coming at evening from different parts of the marsh, is one 

 of the most pleasing and suggestive of all spring voices; when two or 



