ed on his favourite
limb of a young maple, dose beside the water, and singing happily,
through sunshine and through rain. This is the true bird of the brook,
after all: the winged spirit of cheerfulness and contentment, the patron
saint of little rivers, the fisherman's friend. He seems to enter into
your sport with his good wishes, and for an hour at a time, while you
are trying every fly in your book, from a black gnat to a white miller,
to entice the crafty old trout at the foot of the meadow-pool,
the song-sparrow, close above you, will be chanting patience and
encouragement. And when at last success crowns your endeavour, and the
parti-coloured prize is glittering in your net, the bird on the bough
breaks out in an ecstasy of congratulation: "catch 'im, catch 'im, catch
'im; oh, what a pretty fellow! sweet!"

There are other birds that seem to have a very different temper. The
blue-jay sits high up in the withered-pine tree, bobbing up and down,
and calling to his mate in a tone of affected sweetness, "salute-her,
salute-her," but when you come in sight he flies away with a harsh cry
of "thief, thief, thief!" The kingfisher, ruffling his crest in solitary
pride on the end of a dead branch, darts down the stream at your
approach, winding up his red angrily as if he despised you for
interrupting his fishing. And the cat-bird, that sang so charmingly
while she thought herself unobserved, now tries to scare you away by
screaming "snake, snake!"

As evening draws near, and the light beneath the trees grows yellower,
and the air is full of filmy insects out for their last dance, the voice
of the little river becomes louder and more distinct. The true poets
have often noticed this apparent increase in the sound of flowing waters
at nightfall. Gray, in one of his letters, speaks of "hearing the murmur
of many waters not audible in the daytime." Wordsworth repeats the same
thought almost in the same words:

"A soft and lulling sound is heard
Of streams inaudible by day."

And Tennyson, in the valley of Cauteretz, tells of the river

"Deepening his voice with deepening of the night."

It is in this mystical hour that you will hear the most celestial and
entrancing of all bird-notes, the songs of the thrushes,--the hermit,
and the wood-thrush, and the veery. Sometimes, but not often, you will
see the singers. I remember once, at the close of a beautiful day's
fishing on the Swiftwater, I came out, just a