114 NATURE STUDY. 



frosted radiance seemed to play, and the big round moon 

 hung in the west on a vale of soft, transparent clouds. 

 The cedar-dotted meadow before me was enshrouded in 

 a .soft light which neither revealed nor obscured the 

 clumps of growth that rose above its level stretch, and in 

 the distant east the faintest hue stood out a messenger of 

 coming day. Feeling the chilling mystery, the hushed 

 enchantment of the hour, I quietly retreated once more 

 into the grove of darkness, wrapped myself in the folds of 

 my cloak, and reclined to enjoy the rare peace which pre- 

 vailed. My ears were alert to every sound, the cracking 

 of a twig, the whisper of the night wind with its breath of 

 bayberry and salt marshes, the rustle of the hoar-fringed 

 grass in the meadow, and the regular peep of a hyla in a 

 hidden swamp. 



Through a ragged gap in the dark trees, I watched the 

 moon sink, and lose, scarce perceptibly, her silver bril- 

 liancy, and finally drop behind a bar of clouds in the west. 

 Then came a brief period, the darkest hour of the night ; 

 but soon the light of the rising sun swept over the resting 

 world. I listened anxiously for the matin hymn to begin, 

 and soon it did, as a soft far-traveled gleam filtered into 

 the blackness of the grove. A Robin caroled by a distant 

 farmhouse, and for five minutes the loved phrases of this 

 rustic poet were the only music of the dawn. Then a low 

 " kleouk " marked the steady flight of a party of Herons, 

 as they winged through the dusk to their feeding grounds. 

 I watched their gray forms from my rest among the pines. 

 Soon a Meadowlark uttered his plaint, and from the light- 

 touched uplands a Field Sparrow sent down his rippling 

 flute into the quiet of the world below. Then came the 

 wonderful chorus when the crisp air of morning throbs 

 with the singing of birds, and I lingered in the woods un- 

 til my little friend the Pine Warbler bid me, with his sweet 

 and drowsy trill, to be off to the shore and the sunrise. 



