50 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 
monopolises more than his due share of the serenade, number two 
loses all patience and strikes in hit or miss, and the jumble sounds 
odd, a sort of bird-Billingsgate, for toward the last of his series of 
“‘ whip-poor-wills,” the party of the first part accelerates his rate, and 
repeats the triad with almost breathless rapidity, so as to get in his 
number and make sure of his time ahead of interruption. ‘There is 
something romantic, and almost dreamy and somnambulistic, so 
remote from the huckstering world of our day, in these midnight 
bird-revels, that when we listen to them we are carried in memory 
to the ‘‘ Arabian Nights Entertainment,” or to some of the episodes 
in the Decameron of Boccaccio, and “‘ Night is Palace Beautiful Peace 
Chambered,” and at that period of the year when the air is swarm- 
ing with fire-flies the carnival is at its climax ! 
The ‘‘ Renaissance” or true growing-time seems now to have 
arrived, and summer-sounds like the call of the Oriole and the flute 
of the Rose-breasted Grosbeak are heard, and man and beast rejoice. 
The thermometer stands 69 degrees in the shade. Least 
Sandpiper’s cries are frequent, both by day and in the evening. 
They have nests in our meadows. 
May gth, 1893. 
