11
Back Bay Basin,
Boston, Mass.
1909.
Feb. 27
(No 11)
  The love note to which I have alluded may be
known as the bleat. I do not like this name
for it is not accurately suggestive of the sound
although it comes nearer being so than any other
term I can think of - hence its adoption. 
After hearing it hundreds of times this morning I
should describe it as a short, flat, vibrant paaap
not unlike that of the Woodcock but a trifle more
prolongued and also less harsh and incisive. It
reminded me somewhat of the blast of a penny trumpet
and less forcibly of the wheezy quack of a drake
Black Duck. It did not seem loud when uttered within
fifty yards of me yet I could hear it distinctly at
four or five times that distance when the air was still.
It was sometimes doubled (paap-paap) and occasionally
trebled (paap-paa-paa). I suspected at first that
Whistler courtship.
Love call.