206 FEATHERED GAME 



feet — grasshoppers in blundering flight butt 

 their heads against him as though they thought 

 to put him to rout with their headlong charge, — 

 bumblebees cross his path with droning note, 

 and swallows career about him, making a feast 

 off the tiny myriads which his march disturbs. 

 Eight and left go scurrying brown sparrows, 

 and other small fowl rise unexpectedly from the 

 stubble. Flocks of rusty-looking bobolinks, 

 scarcely to be known as the gay birds of two 

 months ago, dash out from the oat patch with 

 chirping discontent, and over all the breath of 

 summer and perchance the air like a furnace. 



Suddenly another note, a gurgling, rippling, 

 bubbling whistle, cuts short the gunner's day 

 dream, and as it sounds a second time he comes 

 out from his sleepy state with a sudden start. 

 It was that for which he has listened. Look 

 where he may — right or left, above, ahead, be- 

 hind, he sees no bird, but still the flute-like note 

 is heard, and at last, a hundred yards away, his 

 eye catches the flicker of sunlight on a pair of 

 brown wings just as they are folded from their 

 flight. That soft and mellow whistle has some 

 peculiar quality, which, when it comes dropping 



