322 WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 



strikes through, the rarified atmosphere, stunning you like a 

 pistol-shot close to the ear 1 



You turnl They are the Cranes! your heart bounds 

 from the shock with a gush of joy you are no longer alone! 

 There they are half a mile to the right see the snowy 

 phalanx ascending into view over yon wave-like undulation 

 of the prairie with every stately stride uttering that loud 

 and thumping cry, while their long quick-necks cross each 

 other against the horizon, weaving in and weaving out, 

 making strange figures on the blue, as they huddle, stalking 

 to and fro confusedly at sight of the forlorn wanderer. 



How stately and how beautiful they are tall as a tall man 

 the dazzling white of their plumage heightened by the 

 black primary coverts of the wing ! their motions how pic- 

 turesque and gracefully solemn ! 



"What a surprise how they bring the real earth back to you 

 again ! That wild note has startled you before with its sud- 

 den rolling croak, but upon far different and distant scenes. 



Perhaps it had been heard amidst native surroundings, as 

 it has been by myself in Kentucky and through the South- 

 western States, in which it alights during its fall migrations 

 towards the South, and then how pleasant the associations it 

 recalls thus in the friendless wilderness ! They seem as if 

 they brought us news from those we loved as if but yester- 

 day they had alighted, as they passed, in their favorite field, 

 upon our veritable homestead, and now came to us with the 

 aroma of home upon their wings, annihilating space and 

 softening- absence ! 



But here is its winter home, and with us it had only been 

 a sojourner by the way ; here it seems the incarnate spirit of 

 the place, an embodiment of latitude sentinaling the repose 

 of nature its tall form overlooking the undulations of 

 the plain with a keenness of vision surpassed only by the 

 great vulture of the East nothing can traverse these wastes 

 without being challenged. 



Its tocsin shout rings upon the hurried ear of the Caman- 



