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 

 cry 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 



b „ c , , , , "Bob," "white." 



accompanying ngures, alter sketches Fig. 147.— The morning 

 from the wild bird. caE - 



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 : — 



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 Guinea Hen. As a finale, sometimes came a loud, rasping noise, 

 not unlike the effort of a broken-voiced Whip-poor-will. 



