of them
was closely pursuing the other; not as though he were trying to overtake
her, but rather as though he were determined to keep her company. They
swept now this way, now that,--now lost to sight, and now reappearing;
and once they passed straight over my head, so that I heard the
whistling of their wings. Then they were off, and I saw them no more.
They came from far, and by night they were perhaps a hundred leagues
away. But I followed them with my blessing, and to this day I feel
toward them a little as I suppose we all do toward a certain few
strangers whom we have met here and there in our journeyings, and
chatted with for an hour or two. We had never seen them before; if we
learned their names we have long ago forgotten them; but somehow the
persons themselves keep a place in our memory, and even in our
affection.

"I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world, no doubt;
Yet a hand's breadth of it shines alone
'Mid the blank miles round about:

"For there I picked up on the heather,
And there I put inside my breast,
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather!
Well, I forget the rest."

Since we cannot ask birds for an explanation of their conduct, we have
nothing for it but to steal their secrets, as far as possible, by
patient and stealthy watching. In this way I hope, sooner or later, to
find out what the golden-winged woodpecker means by the shout with which
he makes the fields reecho in the spring, especially in the latter half
of April. I have no doubt it has something to do with the process of
mating, but it puzzles me to guess just what the message can be which
requires to be published so loudly. Such a stentorian, long-winded cry!
You wonder where the bird finds breath for such an effort, and think he
must be a very ungentle lover, surely. But withhold your judgment for a
few days, till you see him and his mate gamboling about the branches of
some old tree, calling in soft, affectionate tones, _Wick-a-wick,
wick-a-wick_; then you will confess that, whatever failings the
golden-wing may have, he is not to be charged with insensibility. The
fact is that our "yellow-hammer" has a genius for noise. When he is
_very_ happy he drums. Sometimes, indeed, he marvels how birds who
haven't this resource are able to get through the world at all. Nor
ought we to think it strange if in his love-making he finds great use
for this his crowning accomplishment.