Hopkinsville Kentuckian. [volume] (Hopkinsville, Ky.) 1889-1918, 1905-08-29

THE NOISES TOLD OF LURKING Enc
MES.
buffalo, and knew that somewhere
near at hand a herd of the great
shaggy, commanding beasts were feed
ing.
But it was the birds, of course,
whose voices were most noticeable in
the music. At that hour of the even
ing, every feathered creature seems
to take it as a part of the days duty
and pleasure to sing; nor was it diff
cult to identify the singers. Above my
head, an occasional hunting swallow
twittered, as he few, and near an old
house pair Of chimney swifts sprang
their silver rattle as they circled and
curved above their home site. From
the bushes and little poplaTs that lined
the road, blackthroated green warb-
lers sang Eee-zee-zee; a red-eyed vireo
wandered industriously among the
branches, and expounded very gentle
law in a spirited voice; and a white
breasted nuthatch talked to himself,
ank, ank, ank.
A song sparrow lifted his mellow
evensong from the top Of brush pile
A phoebe called plaintively, and i'm.
mediately after / heard the sharp snap
of his bill, as he tried for a flying in
sect. A brown thrasher dubbed and
sputtered and cheered in the distance;
veery sent up his spiral song, a sue
cession of notes in a constantly as
cending scale, and an ovenbird shrilled
ecstatically, as though his little spotted
breast were so full of Joy that he could
not do otherwise than try to impress 1t
upon the world.
Aftor that came the climax of bird
songs, the distant whistle of the hermit
thrush. 1t can be picked out from all
other bird music, because no other song
ster hereabouts has such rare beauty
of voice. When you have never before
heard in sweetness. in purity, in char
acter as though the singer were aloOf
from the everyday world, a rare soul
alone with his own fine thoughts, that
is the hermit. 1t is not the variety of
his notes; 1t is their single excellence.
1t is not for their hubbling ecstasy, or
their mirthfulness, or for any suggestion
of Joy; 1t is merely the wondrous quail
ity Of the tone. II is as though you
heard Calve or a Sembrich singing
to the flute. What If Shelly had heard
the hermit! There would be another
poem to match The Skylark"
Quickly the tune In my ears changed;
was listening to something very close
at hand, to the humble OF early bees in
the apple blossoms, and again to the
mourning of a few small gnats that
played In the air IN front OF me.
The sun sank lower, the mountains in
the west became a clear blue line, while
those to the east we're almost blue black
From somewhere, out of the air above
me, dropped the cry of a night hawk,
and in imagination | saw the bird
wheeling and sailing and sliding
through the upper air. And now the
little Deeping frogs awoke in the marsh;
their shrill birditke voices we're some
what suggestive OF sAndpipers.
The voices, the sounds, were now at
full hsiBAt, and IS a At ending to the
evening music there hoated up from the
valley beneath the low OF homing cat
tie, the clink. olink. clink Of the bell on
COW as she alnblsa stableward 70 milk
Ing and bed; pleasant sounds sugges-
tive q man and mans life, OF quiet old
farm houses, and smoking chimneys.
and toAaEB retngning from the days
work In TIA nslds.
HRlgM1g HAFsodlD BAYlJE8-