62 IN THE GREEN LEAF 



of decaying trees, luxuriant in foliage still, but 

 only the wrecks of what they once were. Some 

 of them are eighteen feet in girth, with huge 

 dead limbs, barkless and bleached, showing out 

 from the greenery. And high up over all, the 

 pikes of the dead top branches show like bare 

 poles. On these bare, bleak pikes, at different 

 times of the day, and under certain conditions 

 of weather, the bird drums ; and I have heard 

 that drum answered instantly half a mile away. 

 As you listen, with your ear close to the 

 bare wood of one of these old forest giants 

 for great patches of rugged bark have loosened 

 and fallen years ago the roll rattles down 

 to your very feet, On a bright spring morn- 

 ing, when the air was fresh and sharp, but 

 still, I have listened to them for hours ; as 

 a rule, if the weather was at all favourable, 

 from half-past six up to ten o'clock. A bird 

 that is only nine inches in length, or nine 

 and a half, when on the top of a bare pike, 

 seventy, or it may be eighty, feet above you, 

 is a small object, but the glasses settle the 

 matter. There he is, and the blows are de- 

 livered with such rapidity, that the head shows 

 us a blur only. To use a very homely expres- 

 sion, the head of the bird appears to be in two 



