62 OUT WITH THE BIRDS 



small flock of barn swallows swept by, to be fol- 

 lowed in a few minutes by a larger company of 

 tiny, sober-clad bank swallows. In all this bird- 

 world, each after his kind was twittering or sing- 

 ing aloud the thing that was in his heart; and 

 back of it all was a steady accompaniment that 

 rose and fell in half rhythmical cadence like a 

 distant organ symphony. This was the tuneful 

 mooing of the pinnated grouse, that out on the 

 flat among the meadows were holding their won- 

 drous spring carnivals. 



Just about the time that the vesper sparrow 

 perched upon the roof of my blind and sang his 

 lovely little hymn into my ear, there was a suc- 

 cession of thunderous descents upon the knoll 

 around me, and a dozen sharp-tails had returned. 



The wildest period of their revelry was always 

 just after they began; and soon the quadrille 

 was whirling along at its best. They danced 

 usually in pairs, which is quite the approved cus- 

 tom elsewhere; and the performance of the two 

 hovering about by little f ocusing-mark served as 

 a sample of what the others were doing on other 

 parts of the ground. Sometimes for the space of 

 several minutes they sat quite still, beak to beak, 

 or occasionally they made hostile little passes, as 



