Atalapha, a Winged Brownie 
The sunset of the forest had given the signal to 
robin and tanager to begin their vesper song. The 
sunset of the mount had issued the dew-time call 
that conjures out of caves and hollow trees the small- 
est of the winged Brownie folk, whose kingdom is 
the twilight and whose dance hall is high above the 
treetops. 
Now they come trooping down the open aisle 
above the Beaver ponds. Skimming and circling 
on lightning wing, pursuing each other with shouts 
that to them seemed loud and boisterous, though 
to us they were merely squeaks and twitters too 
thin and fine for any but the sharpest ears. 
Up and down the waterway they dart, playing, 
singing, hunting. Yes, hunting, for this is the time 
and place of the evening meal and the prey they 
catch and eat is—as befits such dainty coursers of 
the air—the butterflies of the night. And when 
one of those great fluffy things went fluttering by, 
some two or three of the Brownie throng would 
cease pursuing gnats and gauze flies, to have a 
riotous breakneck speeder after the moth, and rend- 
ing its fat body in the air among them, they scat- 
tered its feathers to the wind and its framework 
to the ground. 
There was a fixed order for the coming of the 
winged ones, an etiquette, not written, but ob- 
145 
Portrait 
of a 
Brownie 
