68 The Wilderness H^mter. 



before or since. Sometimes he would perch motionless 

 for many minutes, his body quivering and thrilling with the 

 outpour of music. Then he would drop softly from twig 

 to twig, until the lowest limb was reached, when he would 

 rise, fluttering and leaping through the branches, his song 

 never ceasing for an instant, until he reached the summit 

 of the tree and launched into the warm, scent-laden air, 

 floating in spirals, with outspread wings, until, as if spent, 

 he sank gently back into the tree and down through the 

 branches, while his song rose into an ecstasy of ardor and 

 passion. His voice rang like a clarionet, in rich, full 

 tones, and his execution covered the widest possible com- 

 pass ; theme followed theme, a torrent of music, a swelling 

 tide of harmony, in which scarcely any two bars were 

 alike. I stayed till midnight listening to him ; he was 

 singing when I went to sleep ; he was still singing when I 

 woke a couple of hours later ; he sang through the livelong 

 night. 



There are many singers beside the meadow lark and 

 little skylark in the plains country ; that brown and deso- 

 late land, once the home of the thronging buffalo, still 

 haunted by the bands of the prong-buck, and roamed over 

 in ever increasing numbers by the branded herds of the 

 ranchman. In the brush of the river bottoms there are 

 the thrasher and song sparrow ; on the grassy uplands the 

 lark finch, vesper sparrow, and lark bunting ; and in the 

 rough canyons the rock wren, with its ringing melody. 



Yet in certain moods a man cares less for even the love- 

 liest bird songs than for the wilder, harsher, stronger sounds 

 of the wilderness ; the guttural booming and clucking of the 



