236 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



and strangely enough, was at its best at a distance 

 and in the dusk or the early moonlight. I was to 

 learn later that the singer was the veery or Wilson 

 thrush. That was many years ago, but I have loved 

 the bird from that day. Once I found its nest set in 

 the midst of a dark rhododendron swamp; and as the 

 mother bird slipped like a tawny shadow from the 

 wondrous blue eggs gleaming in the dusk, from 

 nearby vibrated the whirling ringing notes of its 

 mate. Again, on a tussock in Wolf Island Marsh I 

 found another; and as both birds fluttered around 

 me with the alarm note, "Pheu, pheu," the father 

 bird whispered a strain of his song, and it was as if 

 the wind had rippled the music from the waving 

 marsh-grasses. 



In the dawn-dusk on the top of Mount Pocono I 

 have listened to them singing in the rain, and their 

 song was as dreamy sweet as the tinkling of the 

 spring shower. The veery song is at its best by 

 moonlight. I remember one late May twilight com- 

 ing down to the round green circle of an old charcoal- 

 pit, by the side of a little lake set deep in the hills 

 and fringed with the tender green of the opening 

 leaves. That day I had climbed Kent Mountain, 

 and seen my first eagle, and visited a rattlesnake den, 

 and found a dozen or so nests, and walked many 

 dusty miles. It was nearly dark as I slipped off my 

 clothes and swam through the motionless water. 

 The still air was sweet with little elusive waves of 

 perfume from the blossoms of the wild grape. Over 

 the edge of Pond Hill the golden rim of a full moon 



