48 Bird - Lore
rare exceptions, only during the breeding season. The female when anxious about her eggs or young also calls fi-A'i-fi and sometimes H11 like a Flickeri
In the more open, grassy stretches of meadow, as well as among the beds of cat—tail flags but seldom, if ever. in thickets of bushes, we also hear, after the middle of April, mingling with the notes of Virginia Rails and the din of countless frogs, the love song of the Carolina Rail, a sweet, plaintive Er-c given with a rising inflection and Suggesting one of the ‘scatter calls ’ of the Quail. Such, at least, is its general effect at distances of from fifty to two or three hundred yards, but very near at' hand it developes a somewhat harsh or strident quality and sounds more like ra-e, while at the extreme limits of ear range one of the syllables is lost and the other might be easily mistaken for the peep of a Pickering’s hyla. This note, repeated at short. regular intervals, many times in succession, is one of the most frequent as well as pleasing voices of the marsh in the early morning and just after sunset. It is also given intermittently at all hours of the day, especially in cloudy weather, while it is often continued, practi- cally without cessation. through the entire night.
Equally characteristic of this season and even more attractive in quality is what has been termed the ‘ whinny’ of the Carolina Rail. It consists of a dozen or fifteen short whistles as sweet and clear in tone as a silver bell. The first eight or ten are uttered very rapidly in an evenly descending scale, the remaining ones more deliberately and in a uniform key. The whole series is often followed by a varying number of harsher, more drawling notes given at rather wide intervals. Although it is probable that the ‘whinny’ is made by both sexes I have actually traced it only to the female. She uses it, apparently, chiefly as a call to her mate, but I have also repeatedly heard her give it just after I had left the immediate neighborhood of her nest, seemingly as an expression of triumph or rejoicing at the discovery that her eggs had not been molested. When especially anxious for their safety and circling close about the human intruder she often utters a low whining murmur closely resembling that which the Muskrat makes while pursuing his mate and sometimes a cut-cut-cutm not unlike the song of the Virginia Rail, but decidedly less loud and vibrant. In addition to all these notes both sexes have a variety of short, sharp cries which they give when startled by any sudden noise.
Although the hylas and leopard frogs may be occasionally heard before the close of March as well as frequently after the Ist of May they are invariably most numerous—or rather vociferous—in April. The notes of Pickering’s hyla are pitched very high in the scale, but they are clear and crisp rather than shrill, and the peep, peep, pee-weep of six or eight individuals, coming at evening from different parts of the marsh, is one of the most pleasing and suggestive of all spring voices; when two or
