The Quail, the Farmer's Friend. 393 



harmony. No bright tinted troubadour of the air, flashing here and 

 there like a thing of light, his gorgeous breast almost bursting with rich 

 excesses of song, charms liim from the seductive call of his best loved l)ir(l 

 friend. Spring has come. Here and there dead branches are quicken- 

 ing into life ; buds burst into leaf ; the brown patches of earth again 

 become the nursery of tender grasses and modest flowers, and all Nature 

 is yielding to the annual miracle which heals the scars on Winter's 

 grave with the sweet assurance "that we, too, shall live again." From 

 afar, soft as the low notes of a flute, its sharp, staccato whistle, changed 

 by the witchery of the season into the coy notes of love's first story, 

 comes "Bob White! Ah! Bob White!" Again the music of his soul 

 changes. The shy wooer of the demure little lady nearby becomes bold 

 as a knight errant, and as his jealousy and ardor keeps pace, from stump 

 or rail or broken thicket branch or wherever her eyes, kindling with the 

 fires of coming allegiance, will fall upon his knightly bearing, or ears 

 hear his ardent protestations, again the call, but now the ringing defy of 

 tlie mail-clad warrior ready to do battle in the lists for his lady love. 

 The theatre of his song changes with the coming of June, life's time of 

 thrift. The covenants of Spring have been redeemed, and Summer sings 

 of the fatness of field and vine in the glorious Autumn. While the dew 

 is yet wet on the green of the leaves and gold of the flowers. Bob White 

 banishes sleep with his insistent call, "Wheat's ripe! wheat's ripe!" His 

 faithful mate is not far away. In some neglected spot where security 

 abounds she is busy with the duties of maternity and again his chuck- 

 ling notes, ' ' All 's well ! all 's well ! " as from ' ' the orchard, the meadow, 

 the deep tangled wdldwood," he gives full throated utterance of his 

 ecstatic joy. What is more charming to the ear than the music of the quail, 

 wafted from wheat shocks as the rays of the rising sun tuni from orange 

 to gold the "beauty of the valleys and the glory of the hills." It sur- 

 passes the ripple of the brook, which poets say is Nature's grandest 

 melody. The tenderest memories of my happy boyhood days are linked 

 with hazy summer, when the air was freighted with the perfume of 

 flowers, fruits and berries, and the cheery whistle of ' ' Bob White ' ' rang 

 through the old orchard. Through the years come hymns of happy reap- 

 ers singing in seas of shimmering grain, the sound of bells, tinkling the 

 way of homeward plodding herds and from the fields the voices of the toil- 

 ers chanting the dirge of dying day and mingling with it all Bob White's 

 musical farewell, as fading light slips down the cloud-isles of the sunset. 



"Dies the day, and from afar away, - 

 Under the evening stars, 

 . Dies tlie echo as dies tlie day, 



Droops witli the dew in tlie new-mown hay. 

 Sinks and sleeps in the scent of the May-, 

 Dreamily, faint and far." 



