BIRDS OF CHOCORUA 209 



worship, making the welkin ring with praise of 

 the pure joy of life, a chorus that quivered into 

 silence only with the passing of the rose of 

 mystery from the very tip of the high horn of 

 Chocorua. Nor did the silence last long. Before 

 the last wood thrush had finished his " Good 

 night; all's well; God is good," other songs of 

 praise and the joy of life were echoing from 

 swamp and wood and lake margin. Where the 

 birds had ceased a myriad other voices took up 

 new refrains. The dreamy trill of the tree frogs 

 sounds from the perfumed dusk, a lullaby of the 

 world primeval that sang the first man to sleep 

 in some safe refuge in the deep woods. From the 

 distant marsh the mingled voices of innumerable 

 hylas ring a chorus of fairy sleighbells that rises 

 and falls as the wind of evening drifts by. No- 

 where in the world, I believe, can one hear such 

 hyla choruses as he gets in May evenings from 

 marshy pools among the New Hampshire hills. 

 Coming from a distance the hypnotic insistence 

 of the sound has a soothing, sleepy quality that 

 lulls to rest. To seek its source and stand by the 

 very border of the pool is to find it a frightful up- 



