SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS 



The cry begins with a menace, but it dies down 

 in a wild lament. Now it is close at hand, now it 

 comes faintly from the more distant thicket, for 

 the whip-poor-will, like our own nightjar, to which 

 it is allied, utters its characteristic notes from the 

 least expected quarters. Following the whip- 

 poor-will's startling outbreak, a dull " boom- 

 boom," falling at measured intervals, breaks the 

 silence. The bull-frogs are beginning their 

 monotonous concert that goes on all through the 

 night. 



In the early morning the ripples dance on the 

 lake, and the sky wears again the unvarying blue 

 of a Canadian mid-summer day. 



Men speak of England as the Old Country, but 

 surely these primeval forests that encircle the 

 little wooden hotel, set back in the clearing, that 

 have never been meddled with since creation, 

 more truly deserve the name. 



From the tiny pier, the eye rests on vast sheets 

 of water, dotted with plumed islets, and on the 

 woods that stretch to illimitable distances, which 

 have been touched by no hand save that of Nature, 

 through the uncounted centuries. One must 

 indeed go warily when one ventures from this 

 hotel clearing, bounded by the roughly hewn 

 palisades, for it is easy to lose all bearings, and one 

 might travel a thousand miles without striking 

 the semblance of a road. From the over-hanging 

 maple trees, from the reeds at the lake side, and 

 even from mid-air, come the mingled notes of 

 birds, and we pause for a while, seeking to detach 

 one reiterated sound from the chorus in order to 

 identify the songster from which it proceeds. 



Many of the notes seem familiar, yet, when we 

 listen attentively, they all seem to have some 

 quality that renders them strange to us. 



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