Midsummer Night Sounds 



feet, that the air rushing beneath his hol- 

 lowed wings makes a long, booming sound 

 like the echo of a cannon's report among 

 the hills. Again and again have I heard 

 the night hawks diving in the dusk over the 

 roofs and steeples of Boston, while I have 

 been sitting at my open window of a sum- 

 mer evening. This diving and mounting 

 again, I am inclined to think, is a gyration 

 of pure physical pleasure, a part of the gen- 

 eral playfulness of nature's wild creatures. 

 The booming is a pleasant sound echoing 

 through the hushed air of summer twilight ; 

 and no doubt many who have never under- 

 stood its cause have listened to it with de- 

 light. 



The bittern's ah-unk, ah-unk, is still an- 

 other mysterious and agreeable sound of 

 midsummer evening. It is like the sound 

 made by the handle of an old-fashioned 

 wooden pump, or the blows of an ax driv- 

 ing a stake in the swamp hence the com- 

 mon name of the bird, "stake-driver." 

 There are hundreds of bitterns in the 

 swamps about Canton and Sudbury, just 

 out of Boston. They are large birds, with 

 an immense spread of wing, and fairly 



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