204 LITERARY PILGRIMAGES 



shadows of the Sandwich range add to the cool 

 gloom which wells upward from the deep gorge 

 which is the heart of the mountains. 



On the way, as the water thrushes and Mary- 

 land yellowthroats sing from the thickets near 

 the water, so the oven-bird sends his aggressive 

 staccato from the middle distances of the higher 

 trees. I never knew an oven-bird to sing from 

 either a tree top or a low thicket. Always he sits 

 on a limb well up the trunk yet well beneath the 

 shade also, and sends forth that aggressive, eager 

 call for knowledge. " Teach us, teach us, teach 

 us," he cries to the wood gods, nor is he ever 

 satisfied with his schooling, but applies persistently 

 for more. The oven-bird is the very voice of the 

 spirit of modern learning, crying always, in the 

 wilderness of knowledge attained, for more knowl- 

 edge. The wood gods have taught him much. 

 Invisibility for himself he has almost learned. He 

 sits like a knot on a speckled brown limb, and his 

 speckled brown breast is so much like it that he 

 may sing long there within a little distance of 

 your eye before you see him. Invisibility for his 

 nest he and his demure brown wife have learned 



