AUTUMN 39 



rocks below, and shivered. I dared not dis- 

 turb him, and could only sit in a kind of 

 stupid terror and wait for him to open his 

 eyes. Happily his nap did not last long, 

 and came to a quiet termination; so that 

 the cause of science suffered no loss that 

 day ; but I can never go by the place with- 

 out thinking of what might have happened. 

 Here, likewise, on an autumnal forenoon, 

 two or three years ago, I had another mem- 

 orable experience ; nothing less (nothing 

 more, the reader may say) than the song of 

 a hermit thrush. It was in the season after 

 bluebirds and hermits had been killed in 

 such dreadful numbers (almost exterminated, 

 we thought then) by cold and snow at the 

 South. I had scarcely seen a hermit all the 

 year, and was approaching the bridge, of a 

 pleasant late September morning, when I 

 heard a thrush's voice. I stopped instantly. 

 The note was repeated ; and there the bird 

 stood in a low roadside tree ; the next min- 

 ute he began singing in a kind of reminis- 

 cential half -voice, — the soul of a year's 

 music distilled in a few drops of sound, — 

 such as birds of many kinds so frequently 



