and listen to the sounds
of the night-folk. How few there are that our ears can analyse! We huddle
close to the ground and shut our eyes. Then little by little we open them
and set our senses of sight and hearing at keenest pitch. Even so, how
handicapped are we compared to the wild creatures. A tiny voice becomes
audible, then dies away,--entering for a moment the narrow range of our
coarse hearing,--and finishing its message of invitation or challenge in
vibrations too fine for our ears.

* * * * *

Were we crouched by a dense yew hedge, bordering an English country lane,
a nightingale might delight us,--a melody of day, softened, adapted, to
the night. If the air about us was heavy with the scent of orange blossoms
of some covert in our own southland, the glorious harmony of a mockingbird
might surge through the gloom,--assuaging the ear as do the blossoms
another sense.

But sitting still in our own home tangle let us listen,--listen. Our eyes
have slipped the scales of our listless civilised life and pierce the
darkness with the acuteness of our primeval forefathers; our ears tingle
and strain.

A slender tongue of sound arises from the bush before us. Again and again
it comes, muffled but increasing in volume. A tiny ball of feathers is
perched in the centre of the tangle, with beak hidden in the deep, soft
plumage, but ever and anon the little body throbs and the song falls
gently on the silence of the night: "I beseech you! I beseech you! I
beseech you!" A Maryland yellow-throat is asleep and singing in its
dreams.

As we look and listen, a shadowless something hovers overhead, and,
looking upward, we see a gray screech owl silently hanging on beating
wings. His sharp ears have caught the muffled sound; his eyes search out
the tangle, but the yellow-throat is out of reach. The little hunter
drifts away into the blackness, the song ends and the sharp squeak of a
mouse startles us. We rise slowly from our cramped position and quietly
leave the mysteries of the night.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SEPTEMBER

------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE PASSING OF THE FLOCKS

It is September. August--the month of gray days for birds--has passed. The
last pin-feather of the new winter plumage has burst its sheath, and is
sleek and glistening from its thorough oiling with waterpr