78 Sporting Sketches 



friends. The sandpiper curves outward from his 

 strip of beach while his trembling pinions seem to 

 shake from them his sadly sweet refrain of weet-weet- 

 weet-how-sweet. Big grackles, with tails awry, cluck 

 gruffly in homeward flight, or, perching, raise shoul- 

 ders and rasp out their metallic greetings. Where 

 the willow's rotting stub has shrunk turtle-like 

 within its outer shell, the dainty wood-duck hides 

 her ivory treasures till downy fluffs of wild life are 

 ready to be carried to the kindly stream. Sedate 

 old robins bounce across the green and shape their 

 cottage mud-walls so near the path that the prowling 

 urchin scorns to harry such easy treasure. At dusk 

 and dawn, from highest twigs, the thrasher fills the 

 air with difficult passages from bird classics, while 

 from the scrub below, his slaty cousin, the catbird, 

 flirts his nervous tail as he mocks the feathered star 

 above, or renders an original selection to prove that 

 he, too, is worthy the name of minstrel. 



Above, where the hay-fields warm in yellow sun- 

 shine, the bobolink loiters on ebon wing, while his 

 tinkling cascade of liquid notes need but a slight 

 effort of fancy to be transposed into a silver tribu- 

 tary of the river. Under the denser growths, the 

 towhee scratches among the dying leaves, while 

 now and then a note, fuller, richer, than all, floats 

 up from nowhere as though the spirit-hand of 

 some great master had touched again his sweetest 

 chord. That rare brown poet, with spangled breast 

 and soft dark eye, speaks from velvet shade straight 

 to the heart. Only the wood-thrush has mastered 

 the witchery of musical brevity. " 



There are many others. The caress-like pleading 



