JUNE. 291 



forth their gladness in the myriad hues of sunset, and all an- 

 imated nature raises a shout of music and thankfulness. But 

 there is a pensiveness about the melodies of evening that 

 sweetly harmonizes with the sober meditative hour ; and the 

 same birds, that in the morning pour out their melodious lays 

 as from hearts full of rejoicing, now whisper them in accents 

 more subdued, like the quiet breathing of the winds that are 

 loath to disturb the sleep of the flowers. 



Just before the sun's decline, the thrushes, which are our 

 proper forest warblers, are unusually tuneful, and continue to 

 sing until dark. The voice of the little woodthrush is the 

 last to be heard ; and when his notes have ceased, the night 

 may be said to have commenced : though even after this 

 time, the sweet notes of the grassfinch, (the bush sparrow.) 

 are occasionally poured out from some station in the open 

 fields. But in our woods, at this season, silence does not im- 

 mediately ensue. A restlessness prevails among the feathered 

 tribes, as if they were yet unprepared to renounce the pleas- 

 ures of the day. At intervals, for the space of an hour after 

 dusk, an occasional note of complaint is heard in the thicket 

 from different birds, a shrill chirp from some of the little Syl- 

 vias, the mewing of the catbird among the shrubbery, and the 

 querulous smack of the redthrush. 



Suddenly, when the stillness of the night has become fully 

 realized, the note of the whippoorwill resounds through the 

 forest, with a solemn accent that pleasantly harmonizes with 

 silence and darkness. There is something in his monotonous 

 song that is disagreeable to many, who attribute to it a certain 

 power of announcing a coming disaster. Its peculiar meas- 

 ured cadence, and the mystery that is connected with the 

 bird, cause his notes to seem like the utterance of some pro- 

 phetic message ; and it is said that he often tells a tale of sad- 

 ness that will come before the falling of the leaf. To those 

 who assign the bird no oracular powers, and regard him only 

 as one of the innocent tenants of the grove, his notes are 

 musical and affecting. The song of the whippoorwill is but 

 a poor substitute for that of the nightingale : but the melan- 

 choly it inspires is just sufficient to be an agreeable emotion, 

 and adds impressiveness to the silent scenes around us. 



