222 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



wings making not the faintest breath of sound, until 

 at last he drifted away into the dark. 



That night the temperature rose, until the very 

 breath of spring seemed to be in the air; and early 

 the next morning, before even the faint glimmer of 

 the dawn-dusk had shown, I was awakened by hear- 

 ing a croon so soft and sweet that it ran for long 

 through my dreams without waking me. Again 

 and again it sounded, like the singing ripple of a 

 trout brook or the happy little cradle-song that a 

 mother ruffed grouse makes when she broods her 

 leaf -brown chicks. I recognized the love-song of the 

 little owl, months before its time a song which 

 belongs to the nights when the air is full of spring 

 scents and hy la-calls. 



Perhaps the singer was the same bird who visited 

 Sergeant Henny-Penny one Christmas night. Dur- 

 ing the day the Band had taken a most successful 

 bird-walk. We had seen and heard some twenty dif- 

 ferent kinds of birds; heard the white-breasted nut- 

 hatch sing his spring-song, "Quee-quee-quee," as a 

 Christmas carol for us; met a red fox trotting se- 

 dately through the snow, and altogether had a most 

 adventurous day. That evening I was reading in 

 front of the fire when from Sergeant Henny-Penny 's 

 room came an S.O.S. "Fathie, come quick, there's 

 a nangel flyin' around my room," he called. 



I hurried, for angels flying or sitting are rarely 

 scored on my bird-lists. When I reached the room, 

 Henny-Penny had burrowed so far under the bed- 

 clothes that it seemed doubtful if he would ever 



