Note (return) — A MORNING AT THE OLD SUGAR MILL.7

"Oh yes," some sharp-witted reader will say, "you saw the wings flapping,—beating time,—and so you imagined that the sounds were like wing-beats." But for once the sharp-witted reader is in the wrong. The resemblance is not imaginary. Mr. F.M. Chapman, in A List of Birds Observed at Gainesville, Florida,8 says of the boat-tailed grackle (Quiscalus major): "A singular note of this species greatly resembles the flapping of wings, as of a coot tripping over the water; this sound was very familiar to me, but so excellent is the imitation that for a long time I attributed it to one of the numerous coots which abound in most places favored by Q. major."