CLOUD FANTASIES. 37 



scolds and chatters, then warbles and whistles, 

 then chatters and scolds again. He is seemingly 

 in several parts of the thicket at once, now here, 

 now there, ever invisible yet ever heard ; a ghost- 

 like bird haunting the densest shrubbery, yet 

 making the welkin ring for rods around. 



Between me and the clouds a buzzard soars, 

 turning at will in broad circles, yet without the 

 flap of a wing; gliding on and on, seemingly 

 without the movement of a muscle. What is 

 this power which the buzzard, and to some ex- 

 ten fc our larger hawks, possess ? How is the mo- 

 tion begotten and sustained ? These are ques- 

 tions which, to my knowledge, are as yet un- 

 answered. 



The clouds are low down this morn. They 

 go skimming along as if on some important mis- 

 sion ; changing shape and becoming mist or fog- 

 like in appearance as they lower sink. All are 

 eastward bound to meet their brethren on the 

 ~New England shores or to be condensed as rain 

 on the Alleghanian slopes. Methinks, at times, 

 that on the pinnacles or highest ledges of some 

 of those banked up clouds, which often show 



