BIRDS OF FIELD AND GARDEN. 327 
where they squat with closed eyes at the first danger signal. 
The driver of my heavy farm wagon saw a mother bird one 
day in the road before him. He stopped the slow team at 
once, but too late to save three of the young that, hidden in 
the rut, had been run over by the wheels. He found and 
picked up a live one squatted there. 
All through the breeding season the common call of the 
male, “ Bob-white,” or “ Bob-Bob-White,” may be heard, 
particularly just before a rain, and the farmers translate the 
ery as “More-wet,” or “Some-more-wet.” At a distance 
this call is a clear whistle. Dr. Judd says that when uttered 
within ten feet of the hearer it loses its melody and becomes 
a mere nasal shriek. At the approach of danger the bird 
can reduce the volume of sound at will, so that when it 
stands within twenty or twenty-five feet of the listener its 
whistle seems to come from a point many rods away, — an 
accomplishment which I have heretofore noted as possessed 
by other birds. The call when thus subdued is of exactly 
the same tone and pitch as usual, quite as clear, and deliv- 
ered in exactly the same way. So far as my observations 
go, the bird when calling sits or stands 
in its usual position, throwing up its 
head slightly in enunciating “Bob,” 
and then throwing it well back and 
pointing the bill skyward when utter- 
ing the “white,” as is shown in the 
‘ “Bob,” “white.” 
accompanying figures, after sketches pig. 147.—The morning 
from the wild bird. oul; 
Dr. Judd watched a Quail that called in a somewhat simi- 
lar manner, except that when three notes were given it de- 
pressed its bill almost to its breast in uttering the second. 
He thus describes the calls of the mated birds : — 
Dd 
Then followed a series of queer, responsive “caterwaulings,” more 
unbirdlike than those of the Yellow-breasted Chat, suggesting now the 
call of a cat to her kittens, now the scolding of a caged gray squirrel, 
now the alarm notes of a mother Grouse, blended with the strident cry 
of the GuineaHen. As a finale, sometimes came a loud, rasping noise, 
not unlike the effort of a broken-voiced Whip-poor-will. 
