Summer in the Poconos 



BY CORNELIUS WEYGANDT 



It may have been that it was because our arrival was almost 

 two weeks earlier than it had been the previous year ; it may 

 have been because the solid fruit of the oxheart cherry was Just 

 reddening toward the sun ; it may have been because the dry 

 weather of the previous summer prevented the usual drowning 

 out of innumerable fledglings ; — but from some cause or other 

 there were many more birds about our home in Buck Hill Falls 

 when we arrived there on June 25, 1909, than there had been 

 when we arrived there on July 6, 1908. This day of our arri- 

 val was the warmest day the summer had yet brought, almost 

 the warmest it was to bring, but birds were about our cottage in 

 great plenty, and in evidence through incessant song. Catbirds 

 and Wrens and Robins were busy with broods, but unwontedly 

 noisy for a late afternoon that was as hot and humid as mid- 

 day. In the after supper time that on more propitious days 

 would have been the cool of the evening Chewink and Oven-bird 

 and Indigo Bunting sang nearby. After dark a Chipping Spar- 

 row trilled time after time, the more often perhaps since he had 

 had little to say earlier because of the heat. Before the Chipping 

 Sparrow had done a Whip-poor-will began to call, coming nearer 

 and nearer, until, when he took up his station on the woodshed 

 roof, he was so close at hand you could here the cluck prelim- 

 inary to each utterance of his cry. Next morning the Robin 

 chorus was so loud it woke me even before there was red in the 

 eastern sky. I lay abed until its first burst had ended, then 

 hung out the eastern window to drink in what freshness the 

 night had brought, — it had brought little alleviation of the heat. 

 As I watched the glow creep into the eastern sky and then 

 spread low over the Pike Country barrens a Catbird began to 

 sing, sing as I had never heard a Catbird sing before, more won- 

 derfullv than even a Mockingbird I had listened to one moon- 



(30) 



