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MUSICAL TREES 



Yon breezy pine, whose foliage shades the springs, 

 In many a vocal whisper sweetly sings. 



THEOCRITUS. 



TO the lover of nature the sounds of the moun- 

 tains and the forests are notes in the greatest 

 symphony ever written. What the ordinary man 

 speaks of as buzzing bees, running water, singing 

 rocks, murmuring pines, or rustling leaves, the out- 

 door connoisseur recognises as different instruments 

 in the great orchestra of the infinite. To him every 

 mood of nature has its individual song. Even dif- 

 ferent spots have their regular musical tones to be 

 scientifically identified with a tuning-fork. 



Such a man's only regret is that his perceptive 

 powers are so limited. When he thinks of all the 

 natural noises produced every day which are either 

 too slow or too fast in vibration for his rough ears 

 to hear; when he realises the hundreds of musical 

 intervals between A and B which his limited facul- 

 ties cannot distinguish, he is eager to more thor- 



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