60 OUT WITH THE BIRDS 



and full of the inner meaning of things than that 

 of the wood birds whose songs are so much better 

 known. 



While I lay and listened, I scrawled with a 

 stub of pencil upon a discarded film paper the 

 names of the birds whose voices reached me, and 

 soon found that they totaled a score. On every 

 hand, near and far, rose the hearty notes of the 

 lusty meadow larks; from a mound close by, a 

 vesper sparrow rippled away tenderly; and in a 

 grassy hollow below the knoll, two savanna 

 cousins lisped out their peculiar " Tsip, tsip, 

 zeeee " song. From the marshy bottom of the 

 ravine at the edge of the field came the sweet 

 " Konkereeee " of several red-wings ; and beyond 

 them in the clump of poplars, two flickers were 

 winnowing boisterously. Out from the distant 

 lake came a noisy host of belated snow geese, 

 that worked away to the northward to return no 

 more till autumn. They were followed shortly 

 after by a small knot of grays; and then after 

 them but very low, came the undulating, loose 

 companies of the little black-headed Franklin 

 gulls, shouting " Kic-kic, ki-e-a!" 



Over in the sandhills at no great distance, an- 

 other dance was in progress, and the " Poom, 



