WAYS OF NATURE 



hear them at all. The sound of a boy s penny 

 whistle there in the grove or the meadow would 

 separate itself more from the background of nature, 

 and be a greater challenge to the ear, than is the 

 strain of the thrush or the song of the sparrow. 

 There is something elusive, indefinite, neutral, about 

 bird-songs that makes them strike obliquely, as it 

 were, upon the ear ; and we are very apt to miss 

 them. They are a part of nature, the Nature that 

 lies about us, entirely occupied with her own affairs, 

 and quite regardless of our presence. Hence it is 

 with bird-songs as it is with so many other things 

 in nature they are what we make them ; the ear 

 that hears them must be half creative. I am always 

 disturbed when persons not especially observant 

 of birds ask me to take them where they can hear 

 a particular bird, in whose song they have become 

 interested through a description in some book. As 

 I listen with them, I feel like apologizing for the 

 bird : it has a bad cold, or has just heard some 

 depressing news; it will not let itself out. The 

 song seems so casual and minor when you make a 

 dead set at it. I have taken persons to hear the 

 hermit thrush, and I have fancied that they were all 

 the time saying to themselves, &quot; Is that all ? &quot; But 

 should one hear the bird in his walk, whei) the mind 

 is attuned to simple things and is open and recep 

 tive, when expectation is not aroused and the song 

 comes as a surprise out of the dusky silence of the 

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