MOST UNWELCOME MUSICIANS. 219 



link between the wolf proper and the fox. Its 

 appearance, colour, form of head, and habit of 

 hunting in packs, are all characters that ally it to 

 the wolf; but true wolves, as far as I have been 

 able to investigate their habits in North Western 

 America, invariably have their young in caves, 

 clefts in the rocks, or any place where digging is 

 unnecessary ; whereas the cayote has its young in 

 burrows, precisely in the same way as foxes. 

 The voice, too, is compounded of the howl or bay 

 of the wolf, and the snappish oft repeated yap, 

 yap, peculiar to the fox. 



Camping near the skirts of a forest on the 

 Cascade mountains, in chilly autumn, when the 

 days so far shortened make the evenings tediously 

 long to one alone by the solitary camp-fire, I 

 have lolled and listened to the gradual cessation 

 of sounds, that, one by one slowly ceasing, are 

 at last hushed without your being aware of it, 

 dying off into perfect silence ; as day with its 

 blue sky fades into the purple twilight, and 

 twilight leases behind it a black vaulted expanse, 

 gemmed with sparkling stars ; changes that have 

 no apparent beginning or end. Then amidst 

 this darkness and silence the peculiar cry of the 

 cayote bursts out as if close to your ear; ere 

 one ceases another commences, then another, and 



