MAY MUSES 105 



tance of only a few feet the flight during song that 

 the bird is most attractive. These opportunities, 

 however, are not very frequent, because it generally 

 prefers to flit about the upper branches, where it 

 seems, as viewed from below, merely a tiny, rest- 

 less creature busy amongst the leaves. But some- 

 times on a wooded slope the haunt of a woodvvren 

 may be found, and then a peaceful observer can 

 pause with delight to absorb into memory one of 

 the most charming incidents of the thicket. It 

 may be that you have walked some distance and 

 are resting on a sun-dried, fallen tree, yet on a 

 level with the tops of its survivors on lower ground. 

 A little green and yellow bird, beautifully neat and 

 trim, alights near, but seems not to notice the 

 strange presence ; it reaches upward to take a 

 gnat from the under side of a leaf ; darts into the 

 air for a passing insect ; at one moment disappears 

 in the canopy of waving leaves, and anon returns. 

 So neat and pretty and agile, yet so frail is he, you 

 almost hold the breath for fear of alarming him. 

 A small cloud hides the sun, or a hawk has 

 appeared in the sky, or something else has caused 

 alarm, for he suddenly utters three times a full- 



