126 THE STORY OF A BIRD LOVER 



occur with most song-birds just before darkness 

 descends. The period of absolute obscurity of 

 the eclipse was, of course, short. At this point 

 not only the birds, but all nature seemed sleep- 

 ing. With the beginning of dawn, from one point 

 and another could be heard the cries and first 

 calls preliminary to the opening chorus of song 

 with which birds greet the day. The beauty of 

 light, shade, and color which accompanied the 

 procession of events throughout the duration of the 

 eclipse were impressive, wonderful, magnificent. 

 The picture of a single line of incidents, such as 

 I have portrayed through the medium of birds, 

 indicates but a little of the greatness of the event 

 viewed as a whole. 



For those who are not so fortunate as to wit- 

 ness the song phenomenon which I have de- 

 scribed as accompanying the obscuration of the 

 sun, I suggest that every June day furnishes at 

 its beginning and close a parallel. He who 

 would enjoy the opening should be out of 

 doors at, say, half-past two in the morning, and 

 sit for the next twenty minutes in the unbroken 

 stillness and dark of the time. It will be difficult 

 to say when the day begins, where the blackness 

 ends and fades into the first gray which betokens 

 the dawn ; but coincident with it a low cry from 

 some thicket or tree hard by will announce a per- 

 ception more acute, Presently answering calls 



