NOTES BY THE WAY 



A NEW NOTE IN THE WOODS 



nriHERE is always a new page to be turned in 

 natural history, if one is sufficiently on the 

 alert. I did not know that the eagle celebrated his 

 nuptials in the air till one early spring day I saw 

 a pair of them fall from the sky with talons hooked 

 together. They dropped a hundred feet or more, 

 in a wild embrace, their great wings fanning the 

 air, then separated and mounted aloft, tracing their 

 great circles against the clouds. " Watch and wait " 

 is the naturalist's sign. For years 1 have been 

 trying to ascertain for a certainty the author of that 

 fine plaintive piping to be heard more or less fre- 

 quently, according to the weather, in our summer 

 and autumn woods. It is a note that much resem- 

 bles that of our small marsh frogs in spring, — the 

 hyla; it is not quite so clear and assured, but oth- 

 erwise much the same. Of a very warm October 

 day I have heard the wood vocal with it; it seemed 

 to proceed from every stump and tree about one. 

 Ordinarily it is heard only at intervals throughout 

 the woods. Approach never so cautiously the spot 



