54 SUMMER 



confined song of the indigo bunting as if the bird 

 were singing inside some great kettle. 



One more among a few others the softly fall- 

 ing, round, small, upward-swinging call of the wood 

 pewee. Is it sad ? Yes, sad. But sweeter than sad, 

 restful, cooling, and inexpressibly gentle. All day 

 long from high above your head and usually quite 

 out of view, the voice it seems hardly a voice 

 breaks the long silence of the summer woods. 



When night comes down with the long twilight 

 there sounds a strange, almost awesome quawk in the 

 dusk over the fields. It sends a thrill through me, 

 notwithstanding its nightly occurrence all through 

 July and August. It is the passing of a pair of 

 night herons the black-crowned, I am sure, al- 

 though this single pair only fly over. Where the 

 birds are numerous they nest in great colonies. 



It is the wild, eerie quawk that you should hear, 

 a far-off, mysterious, almost uncanny sound that fills 

 the twilight with a vague, untamed something, no 

 matter how bright and civilized the day may have 

 been. 



XI 



From the harvest fields comes the sweet whistle of 

 Bob White, the clear, round notes rolling far through 

 the hushed summer noon; in the wood-lot the 



