Voices of a New England Marsh 51
their curious antics and uttering their guttural, gurgling songs among the cat-tail flags where, a little later, numbers of their interesting globular nests and chocolate brown eggs may be found by any one provided with a good pair of wading boots. The Short—billed 1\/Iarsh Wrens no longer inhabit the Fresh Pond marshes, although they were common enough there twenty-five years ago, breeding in an extensive tract of rank but fine grass which, like the birds themselves, has since disappeared. They sing later into the summer than the Long-bills, and their notes, which are radically different, may be roughly imitated by the syllables chip, c/Jip, sbee-sbee»5bre, the first two given distinctly and emphatically, the re- maining three rapidly and in a low, somewhat hissing toner About the middle of May, or a few LUNG-BILLED MARSH WREN days earlier in forward seasons, the Florida (OM-ha" “mm Sim Gallinules arrive (see frontispiece), Like the Rails they are given to skulking among the grass or flags but at morning and evening we oc- casionally see them swimming across pools or ditches, their brilliant scar- let bills and frontal shields flashing in the level beams of the rising or de- clining sun. They are noisy birds at this season and some of their cries are second only to those of the Bittern in strength and grotesqueness. One of their commonest vocal performances is a loud and prolonged outcry g consisting of a succession of henvlike will. given rather slowly and at nearly regular inter- vals, and frequently ending with a harsh, drawling leévar-r, kreé—ar-r. They have other calls so numerous, complex and variable that is is difficult to describe them briefly and at the same time ade— quatelyi Sometimes they give four or five loud, harsh screams very like those of a hen in the clutches of a Hawk, but uttered more slowly and at wider intervals; sometimes a series of sounds closely resembling those made by a brooding hen when disturbed, but louder and sharper, suc- ceeded by a number of lower, more querulous cries intermingled with subdued clucking: occa- sionally something which sounds like kr-r—iur-r, b-ur-érur, A-rar-r; lb—llbkb-HJ—K’ea-km, delivered rapidly and falling in pitch towards the
sHoRTrBILLr-zn MARSH WREN (Onerhalf natural size)
