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A CURIOUS APPARATUS. 
white. The throat is beautifully varied with white, black, and reddish- 
brown. But the most remarkable physical feature is the two extra- 
ordinary bags of skin about the neck of the male. These are formed 
by an expansion of the gullet, as well as of the outer skin of the neck, 
which, when the bird is at rest, hang in loose, pendulous, wrinkled 
folds. When these bags, in the breeding-season, are inflated with air, 
they equal in size and closely resemble in colour an ordinary fully 
ripe pear. By means of this curious apparatus, which is readily 
discernible at a distance, he is able to produce his strange call, or, as it 
THE PRAIRIE BEX. 
is termed, tooting. On a still morning it is audible for three or four 
miles; some authorities say as many as five or six. It is a kind of ven- 
triloquism, — not striking the ear of a bystander with much force, but 
impressing him with the idea, though uttered within a few rods of 
him, of a voice a mile or two distant. It consists of three notes of the 
same tone, resembling those produced by the night-hawks in their 
swift descent, and is strongly accented — the last being twice as long 
as the others. 
" When several birds are thus engaged," says Wilson, " the ear is 
