342 APPENDIX, 



Wherever there is mystery there lies a charm ; and to this 

 effect expresses himself Mr. Gosse, who thus speaks of his ac- 

 quaintance with the cry of the saw-whet in his "Romance of 

 Natural History : " 



" In the forests of Lower Canada and the New England States, I 

 have often heard, in spring a mysterious sound, of which, to this day, 

 I do not know the author. Soon after night sets in, a metallic 

 sound is heard from the most sombre forest swamps, where the spruce 

 and the hemlock give a peculiar density to the wood, known as the 

 black growth. The sound comes up clear and regular, like the mea- 

 sured tinkle of a cow bell, or gentle strokes on a piece of metal, or 

 the action of a file upon a saw. It goes on, with intervals of inter- 

 ruption, throughout the hours of darkness. People attribute it to a 

 bird which they call the whetsaw, but nobody pretends to have seen 

 it, so that this can only be considered conjecture, though a highly 

 probable one. The monotony and pertinacity of this note had a 

 strange charm for me, increased, doubtless, by the uncertainty of its 

 origin. Night after night it would be heard in the same spot, 

 invariably the most sombre and gloomy recesses of the black timbered 

 woods. I occasionally watched for it, resorting to the woods before 

 sunset, and waiting till darkness ; but, strange to say, it refused to 

 perform under such conditions. The shy and recluse bird, if bird it 

 was, was, doubtless, aware of the intrusion, and on its guard. Once 

 I heard it under peculiarly wild circumstances. I was riding late at 

 night, and, just at midnight, came to a very lonely part of the road, 

 where the black forest rose on either side. Everything was pro- 

 foundly still, and the measured tramp of my horse's feet on the 

 frozen road was felt as a relief to the deep and oppressive silence ; 

 when suddenly, from the sombre woods, rose the clear metallic tinkle 

 of the whetsaw. The sound, all unexpected as it was, was very 

 striking, and though it was bitterly cold, I drew up for some time to 

 listen to it. In the darkness and silence of the hour, that regularly 

 measured sound, proceeding, too, from so gloomy a spot, had an 

 effect on my mind solemn and unearthly, yet not unmixed with 

 pleasure." 



There is a bird that, long after sundown, and when the moose- 

 caller begins to feel chilled by long watching on the frosty barren, 

 will rush past him with such velocity as to leave no time to catch a 

 certain view of its size or form. It passes close to the ground, and 

 with the whizzing sound of an arrow. Almost every night, whilst 

 thus watching, I have noticed this bird ; can it be the night hawk ? 



