CHAPTER VII. 



"M 



"more noise than music. 



ORE noise than music," such was the com- 

 ment of a townsman who persists in coming 

 into the country, when a Hvely golden-winged wood- 

 pecker chattered and chuckled as it tarried in the 

 tree by which we were standing ; and not ten min- 

 utes later, when a downy woodpecker pecked vigor- 

 ously on the dead limb of a near-by oak, this 

 townsman remarked, **That makes what I said more 

 true than ever ; one squeaks and the other bangs, — 

 a sort of broken fife and cracked drum affair ;" and 

 he laughed, thinking that he had said something very 

 funny. 



This is not a mere matter of taste ; the fellow was 

 a fool to talk as he did. Can any healthy sound — 

 one that has all the elements of unmarred nature 

 behind it — be harsh and out of tune to those who 

 really appreciate wild life? Can man's extreme 

 artificiality so completely wean him from the less 

 favored forms of life that their mere presence seems 

 something to be shunned ? 

 176 



