A SUMMEK NIGHT IN THE WOODS. 221 



in my school-days, when walking with three of my com- 

 rades at midnight on a solitary turnpike road. Not know- 

 ing the cause of it, we were affected with a peculiar 

 sensation of awe, which was not relieved until daylight 

 revealed to us the birds still circling over our heads. 



Often, while thus affected with a sensation of mystery, 

 and in an interval of stillness that is almost sublime, all 

 serious emotions will be put to flight by a sudden chorus 

 of bull-frogs from a neighboring pool. These sounds, iu 

 themselves inharmonious, are so intimately allied with 

 the sweetness and quiet of a summer night in the woods 

 that they seldom fail to excite pleasure. In the course 

 of our midnight saunterings, when we are near any col- 

 lection of water, the shriek of the common green frog is 

 heard frequently; and the trilling voice of the toad, so 

 continual by day, occasionally breaks the silence of night. 

 The common tree-frog, the prophet of summer showers, 

 seldom heard by day except in damp weather, keeps 

 up a constant garrulity during all still nights in the month 

 of June. 



There is no perfect stillness on a summer night. There 

 are gentle flutterings of winds that nestle in the foliage, 

 mysterious whisperings of zephyrs, and humming of noc- 

 turnal insects that hover around us like spirits, and seem 

 to interrogate us about the cause of our presence at this 

 unseasonable hour. "We catch the floatings of distant 

 sounds, mellowed into harmony by the intervening space, 

 and hardly to be distinguished from the noise made by a 

 dropping leaf as it comes rustling down through the smaU 

 branches. The stirring of a little bird, as he preens his 

 feathers upon a branch of a tree, uttering an occasional 

 chirp; a little quadruped leaping suddenly through the 

 underwood and secreting itself hastily among the herbage, 

 — are trifles that add cheerfulness to the solemn quietude 

 of night. 



