ON FOOT IN THE YOSEMITE 



bound spirit to envy ; a pair of violet-green swal- 

 lows, loveliest of the swallow tribe, never so 

 busy, hastening in and out of an old wood- 

 pecker's hole in a stunted wayside oak ; tiny 

 hummingbirds, of course, by name Calliope, 

 wearing the daintiest of fan-shaped, cherry- 

 colored gorgets, true mountaineers, every soul of 

 them, fearless of frost and snow, if only the man- 

 zanita bells would hold out ; and, in particular, 

 a sooty grouse, who nearly put my neck out of joint 

 before — after a good half-hour, at least — I 

 finally caught sight of him as he hitched about 

 in his leafy hiding-place near the top of a tall pine 

 tree, complaining by the hour. Booniy boom^ boom^ 

 boo-boontf boom, boom, so the measure ran, with 

 that odd grace note invariably preceding the fourth 

 syllable, as if it were a point of conscience with 

 the performer that it should stand just there and 

 nowhere else. A forlorn, moping kind of amorous 

 ditty, it sounded to me ; most unmusical, most 

 melancholy, though perhaps I had no call to 

 criticize. 



" Hark, from the pines a doleful sound. 

 My ears attend the cry," — 



so my old-fashioned, orthodox memory fell to 



repeating, while the hollow, sepulchral notes grew 



fainter and fainter with distance as I walked 



191 



