4 FAMILIAR LIFE IN FIELD AND FOREST. 



makes to throw out the liquid whistle, no wonder it 

 can be heard on a still afternoon nearly a quarter of 

 a mile away ! Beneath his chin the skin is swelled 

 out Hke a brownish- white bubble half the size of his 

 whole body. Imagine a man swelling his throat 

 thus until it took a balloon shape fully three feet in 

 diameter, and then letting the thing collapse with a 

 deafening scream that could be heard fully eighteen 

 miles ! Yet this, supposing the Hylds size and voice 

 could be proportionately increased, is exactly what 

 would happen. 



The muscular effort which the tiny creature 

 makes to empty his lungs seems not only to collapse 

 the "bubble," but most of the body, so that when 

 he has let out one shrill whistle there is apparently 

 nothing left but his back, head, and legs. But in 

 another instant he has swelled again, and the per- 

 formance goes on with no evidence that even the 

 smallest blood-vessel will burst. Different individu- 

 als answer each other in different tones, but the 

 dominant one is E slurred to F, iu the highest 

 octave on the piano, nJ=72„i i _i and the song 

 ■■" pitched — by a \ k^ ^^"^ — slight effort 



18 



of the imagination ^ — in the key 



of F minor. Other individuals with larger throats 

 disturb this key by singing thus, i ^K f^ -f and still 



others exasperatingly out of time 



and tune 



