JUNE. 293 



the habits of the bird, is fearful and mysterious. The first 

 time I heard this sound, which resembles the snapping of a 

 viol string, was in my scliool days, when walking with three 

 of my school fellows, at midnight, on a soHtary turnpike road. 

 Not knowing the cause of it, we were affected with a pecul- 

 iar sensation of awe, which was not relieved until daylight 

 revealed to us the birds still circling above our heads. 



Often while thus affected with a sensation of mystery bor- 

 dering on that of sublimity, and in the midst of a stillness 

 that is somewhat awful, all serious emotions will be put to 

 flight, by a sudden chorus of bullfrogs from a neighboring 

 pool. These sounds, in themselves inharmonious, are so sug- 

 gestive of the sweetness and the quiet of a summer evening 

 in the woods, that they seldom fail to impress the mind with 

 agreeable emotions. In the course of our midnight saunter- 

 ^ngs, when we are near any collection of water, the shriek of 

 the common green frog is heard incessantly, at short intervals, 

 and the trilling voice of the toad, so continual by day, oc- 

 casionally breaks the silence of night. The common tree- 

 frog, the prophet of summer showers, which is seldom heard 

 except in damp days, keeps up a constant garrulity, ending 

 only with sunrise, during all still nights in the month of 

 June. 



There is no perfect stillness on a summer night. There 

 are gentle flutterings of winds that nestle in the foliage ; mys- 

 terious whisperings of zephyrs and humming of nocturnal 

 insects, that hover around us like spirits, and seem to interro- 

 gate us about the reason of our presence at this unseasonable 

 hour. We catch the floatings of distant sounds, mellowed 

 into harmony by the softening effect of distance, hardly to 

 be distinguished from the noise made by a dropping leaf, as 

 it comes rustling down through the small branches. The 

 stirring of a little bird, as he preens his feathers upon a 

 branch just over our heads, and uttering an occasional chirp ; 

 a little quadruped leaping suddenly through the underwood, 

 and secreting itself hastily among the herbage, are trifles that 

 add cheerfulness to the solemn quietude of night, 



I am supposing the night to be perfectly calm : but how 



