THE BEEGH WOODS 



enchantment to the magic hours of 

 fading light. 



At regular intervals a weird and fas- 

 cinating song came echoing from the 

 edge of the woods. Beginning with a 

 high note, it went rippling down the 

 scale in rounds, clearly resembling the 

 wind music of the reed. The song of 

 the veery is like no other bird's and has 

 a wild charm about it which stirs the 

 pulse and excites the curiosity of the 

 uninitiated. Often to the boy it draws 

 like a magnet, but, unlike a magnet, 

 the nearer he gets to it the harder it is 

 to find, for it is rather shy and ceases 

 its wonderful song when approached. 

 One of these youthful admirers, in the 

 days before he learned the difference 

 between the major and the minor, set 

 at naught the eulogies of the natur- 

 alists and thus characteristically de- 

 scribed its song: "It sounds like a 

 marble rolling down a gun barrel." 



Here by an open brake among the 

 trees the veery sat, dressed in his red- 

 dish-brown suit, and under parts a dull 

 white with faint markings on his 

 breast. Each time he ran his cadence 

 110 



