82 b Hylocichla fuscescens 175 Concord, Mass. 1907, copy entire 4 pp. (4) August 20 (Ball's Hill, Concord, Mass). — When I awoke this morning the sky near the horizon line in the east was glowing with the light of approaching dawn, but the woods still slumbered in almost total darkness. Two birds were calling to one another among the oaks on the hillside just above the cabin, both uttering a note familiar to me since boyhood but concerning the authorship of which I have been hitherto in doubt. no space Night call of Veery. It is a short, staccato cry, commonly monosyllabic, but not in- frequently divided into two syllables, given with either a rising or a falling inflection, usually clear and resonant but sometimes guttural and occasionally even harsh or strident. Although thus variable in form and tone it possesses nearly always a wild, almost weird quality which makes it a peculiarly interesting and indeed attractive sound. It is so very loud and penetrating as to carry fully a mile when the air is still and it is positively startling in its abrupt intensity when coming from near at hand. I have heard it only by night and oftenest at Lake Umbagog, late in August or early in September when heavy flights of Warblers were passing. Often when lying wakeful in my tent at Pine Point have I listened to it for hours in succession, studying its alternating variations of inflection and intonation and speculating fruitlessly as to the identity of its author. On these occasions it came invariably from birds which quite evidently were on wing at no great height above 25