298 A aig MUSIC. 
on the right and left. Then, as it grew dark, it grew 
silent, — except for the hylas, — till suddenly a field 
sparrow gave out his sweet strain once. After that 
all was quiet for another interval, till a thrasher from 
the hillside began to sing. He ceased, and once more 
there was stillness. All at once the tanager broke 
forth in a strangely excited way, blurting out his 
phrase two or three times and subsiding as abruptly 
as he had commenced. Some crisis in his love-mak- 
ing, I imagined. Now the last oven-bird launched 
into the air and let fall a little shower of melody, and 
a whippoorwill took up his chant afar off. This 
should have been the end; but a robin across the 
meadow thought otherwise, and set at work as if de- 
termined to make a night of it. Mr. Early-and-late, 
the robin’s name ought to be. As I left the wood the 
whippoorwill followed; coming nearer and nearer, 
till finally he overpassed me and sang with all his 
might (while I tried in vain to see him) from a tree 
or the wall, near the big buttonwood. He too is an 
early riser, only he rises before nightfall instead of 
before daylight.” 
