32 IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA 



The trees of the Mission House proved very 

 attractive to these birds ; the tall Lombardy pop- 

 lars were specially favored, which seems strange, 

 for in a high wind (and it was very windy just 

 then) the slim unresting tree forms as bad a 

 perching-place as a bird could well settle on. 

 Nevertheless, to the poplars they would come 

 when the wind was most violent; first hovering 

 or wheeling about in an immense flock, then, as oc- 

 casion offered, dropping down, a few at a time, to 

 cling, like roosting locusts, to the thin vertical 

 branches, clustering thicker and thicker until the 

 high trees looked black with them ; then a mightier 

 gust would smite and sway the tall tops down, and 

 the swallows, blown from their insecure perch, 

 would rise in a purple cloud to scatter chattering 

 all over the windy heavens, only to return and 

 congregate, hovering and clinging as before. 



Lying on the grass, close to the river bank, I 

 would watch them by the hour, noting their unrest 

 and indecision, the strangeness and wild spirit 

 that made the wind and vexed poplars congenial 

 to them ; for something new and strange had come 

 to trouble them the subtle breath 



That in a po./erful language, felt, not heard, 

 Instructs the fowls of heaven. 



But as to the character of that breath I vainly 

 questioned Nature, she being the only woman 

 who can keep a secret, even from a lover. 



