CONCORD, 
1905 
14 
Another 
11 Mystery 11 
For the past three evenings I have heard about 8 
o'clock a sound that I cannot identify but that I heard last 
year about this time in the same place — the rather wet 
meadow just across the road from our farm-house. This sound 
is unlike any other that I know, although it suggests the 
scatter call of the Quail and also a man whistling for a dog. 
Our dog Larry, an Irish terrier, noticed it at once this 
evening as he was lying on a rug in the parlor and rushed to 
the open window with pricked ears, growling a little. This, 
too, despite the fact that the peculiar call v/as half 
drowned in a medley of voices of the Garden Toad, Tree Toad, 
and Pickering's l^ylas that come from the same marsh. 
The strange cry was a rather low quoi-quoi-quoi-quoi- 
quoi (5 or 6 to 8 or 10 notes) and was repeated only five 
or six times at long irregular intervals, although we heard 
it a dozen times or more on the 12th. All three evenings 
were damp and still and on the 12th and 13th there had been 
heavy rains. These brought out the Toads and Hylas in great 
numbers and caused them to renew their early spring concerts 
with full vigor. I suspect that the strange call must 
come from some Batrachian but the creature does not utter 
it with the persistence of most animals of this class. It is 
strange that I should have heard it two years in the same 
place and each year should have heard but one caller. I 
wonder if he is not Abbot Thayer's "ghost". His description 
of the creature he heard at Monadnock is very like this. 
Gilbert saw a "«7easel in the garden carrying a Mole. 
