SENSITIVENESS OF THE EAR. 197 



After watching for a long time for deer on the 

 banks of some still stream, almost motionless myself, 

 the unexpected spring of a trout to the surface has 

 sent the blood to my temples as suddenly as though 

 it had been the leap of a panther. 



By living in the woods, your sense of hearing be- 

 comes so acute that the wilderness never seems silent. 

 It is said that a nice and practised ear can hear at 

 night, in the full vigor of spring, the low sound of 

 growing, bursting vegetation, and in the winter, the 

 shooting of crystals, "like moon-beams splintering 

 along the ground." So in the forest, there is a faint 

 and indistinct hum about you, as if the spreading and 

 bursting of the buds and barks of trees, the stretching 

 out of the roots into the earth, and the slow and affec- 

 tionate interlacing of branches and kiss of leaves, were 

 all perceptible to the ear. The passage of the scarcely 

 moving air over the unseen tree tops, the motion it 

 gives to the trunk — too slight to be detected by the eye 

 — the dropping of an imperfect leaf ; all combine to 

 produce a monotonous sound, which lulls you into a 

 feeling half melancholy and half pleasing. You may, 

 on a still summer afternoon, recline for hours on some 

 gentle slope, and ILsten without weariness to this low, 



