52 Bird -Lore 



end. Shorter and more frequent utterances are a low kloc-kloc or kloc- 

 kloc-kloc and a single explosive kup very like the ejaculation of a startled 

 frog. Nearly all these cries are loud and discordant and most of them are 

 curiously hen -like. 



Quite as retiring by nature as the Rails and Gallinules and even less 

 conspicuous, by reason of its habitual silence, the Least Bittern, most 

 diminutive of our Herons, passes almost unnoticed save by the ornithologists, 

 although it is a not uncommon summer resident of the Fresh Pond 

 marshes, arriving about the middle of May and departing late in August. 

 It is one of the most feeble, listless and timid -seeming of all birds and its 

 habits are in perfect keeping with its appearance, for, excepting when 

 flushed from the beds of cat -tail flags where it apparently spends its en- 

 tire time, and where its frail nest is suspended a foot or more above the 

 water, it is seldom seen on wing even at nightfall when so many 

 other faint-hearted creatures move about with more or less freedom and 

 confidence. Nor do we often hear its voice save during a brief period 

 at the height of the breeding season when the male, concealed among the 

 rank vegetation of his secure retreats, utters a succession of low, cooing 

 sounds varying somewhat in number as well as in form with different 

 birds or even with the same individual at different times. The commoner 

 variations are as follows: coo, boo -boo -boo (the first and last syllables 

 slightly and about evenly accented), coo-coo, coo-hoo-hoo (with distinct 

 emphasis on the last syllable only), co-co-co-co, co-co-bo-bo or co-bo-bo 

 (all without special emphasis on any particular syllable). 



These notes are uttered chiefly in the early morning and late after- 

 noon, usually at rather infrequent intervals but sometimes every four or 

 five seconds for many minutes at a time. When heard at a distance they 

 have a soft, cuckoo-like quality; nearer the bird's voice sounds harder 

 and more like that of the domestic Pigeon, while very close at hand it 

 is almost disagreeably hoarse and raucous as well as hollow and some- 

 what vibrant in tone. Besides this cooing the Least Bittern occasionally 

 emits, when startled, a loud, cackling ca-ca-ca-ca. 



The leopard frogs may be heard occasionally, and the hylas not 

 infrequently, early in May, and the bull frog very commonly towards its 

 close, but the batrachian voices most characteristic of this month are the 

 harsh squawk of the garden toad, already described, and the love notes 

 of the tree toad. During the brief period — scarce exceeding a week — 

 which the male of the species last-named spends with the female in the 

 water (where the eggs are laid) before returning to his favorite hollow 

 branch in some old orchard or forest tree, he and his comrades of the 

 same sex fill the marshes in the late afternoon and through the night 

 with the sound of their joyous contralto voices. The rather pleasing, 

 rolling notes which they utter at this time are not essentially different 



