THINGS TO HEAR THIS SUMMER 51 



This is the season of small sounds. As a test of 

 the keenness of your ears go out at night into 

 some open glade in the woods or by the side of some 

 pond and listen for the squeaking of the bats flit- 

 ting and wavering above in the uncertain light over 

 your head. You will need a stirless midsummer 

 dusk ; and if you can hear the thin, fine squeak as the 

 creature dives near your head, you may be sure your 

 ears are almost as keen as those of the fox. The sound 

 is not audible to most human ears, 



VI 



Another set of small sounds characteristic of mid- 

 summer is the twittering of the flocking swallows in 

 the cornfields and upon the telegraph-wires. This 

 summer I have had long lines of the young birds 

 and their parents from the old barn below the hill 

 strung on the wires from the house across the lawn. 

 Here they preen while some of the old birds hawk for 

 flies, the whole line of them breaking into a soft little 

 twitter each time a newcomer alights among them. 

 One swallow does not make a summer, but your 

 electric light wires sagging with them is the very 

 soul of the summer. 



VII 



In the deep, still woods you will hear the soft call 

 of the robin a low, pensive, plaintive note unlike 



