84 THE WILDERNESS HUNTER. 



spent, he sank gently back into the tree and 

 down through the branches, while his song 

 rose into an ecstasy of ardor and passion. 

 His voice rang like a clarionet, in rich, full 

 tones, and his execution covered the widest 

 possible compass ; theme followed theme, a 

 torrent of music, a swelling tide of harmony, 

 in which scarcely any two bars were alike. I 

 stayed till midnight listening to him ; he was 

 singing when I went to sleep ; he was still 

 singing when I woke a couple of hours later ; 

 he sang through the livelong night. 



There are many singers beside the meadow 

 lark and little skylark in the plains country ; 

 that brown and desolate land, once the home 

 of the 'thronging buffalo, still haunted by the 

 bands of the prong-buck, and roamed over in 

 ever increasing numbers by the branded herds 

 of the ranchman. In the brush of the river 

 bottoms there are the thrasher and song spar- 

 row ; on the grassy uplands the lark finch, 

 vesper sparrow, and lark bunting; and in the 

 rough canyons the rock wren, with its ringing 

 melody. 



Yet in certain moods a man cares less for 

 even the loveliest bird songs than for the 

 wilder, harsher, stronger sounds of the wil- 

 derness ; the guttural booming and clucking of 

 the prairie fowl and the great sage fowl in 

 spring ; the honking of gangs of wild geese, 

 as they fly in rapid wedges ; the bark of an 

 eagle, wheeling in the shadow of storm-scarred 

 cliffs ; or the far-off clanging of many sand- 

 hill cranes, soaring high overhead in circles 

 which cross and recross at an incredible 

 altitude. Wilder yet, and stranger, are the 



