STRANGE CREATURES WITH STRANaS VOICES. 101 



fested in that of the loon {Urinator imber), whose 

 shding note resembles that outrageous invention 

 called a "siren" whistle, which one may hear any 

 time in the harbor of New York. I do not mean to 

 imply by this comparison that the loon when he calls 

 sprawls all over the chromatic scale, as the above- 

 mentioned whistle does ; he does not ; the screech 

 owl comes far nearer that sort of thing. But the 

 loon does modulate his " 0-ho-oo ! " __^/ , 



in a wild, fortissimo way so nearly like /. r i — : 

 the " siren " that the comparison, to my Ya-ho-oi 



mind, is a very natural one. Mr. Cheney's render- 

 ing of the three notes is different ; „ 

 but all birds do not sing alike. K\* f ^^^ \ 



I quote what Mr. J. H. Langille 

 says of the loon's voice. " Beginning on the fifth 

 note of the scale, the voice slides through the eighth 

 to the third of the scale above in loud, clear, sonorous 

 tones, which on a dismal evening before a thunder- 

 storm — the lightning already playing along the inky 

 sky — are anything but musical." Here they are : 

 ^ " He has also another but rather soft and 

 I ^\^ I* r ^ pleasing utterance, sounding like 'Who- 

 •' who-who-who,' the syllables being so 



rapidly pronounced as to sound almost like a shake of 

 the voice — a sort of weird laughter." 



This last calmer but still strong cry is usually ut- 



