than the alders witness night after night in early 

 spring. 



And if the woodcock does not sing, he harps 

 his own accompaniment— a weird wing music, 

 half seolian, that sets you dancing, too, as no 

 other bird music you ever heard. 



It is dusk in the swale. I am sitting on the 

 root of one of the red maples, now in misty 

 garnet bloom. A wavering line of piping hylas 

 marks the course of the stream. Scattered bird- 

 calls come from the covert, and out of the deep- 

 ening blue overhead falls a flock of notes, the 

 chinks of migrants winging north. 



Presently, in the grassy level across the stream, 

 sounds a clear peent ! peent ! peent ! I listen, 

 half rising. Peent ! peent ! peent ! slow and 

 regular; then, bursting from cover with the 

 rush of a rocket, spins the woodcock. Out against 

 the gray horizon he sweeps, and round on the 

 first turn of his soaring spiral. The hum of his 

 wings fills the swale. Round and round, swifter 

 and swifter, the hum rising shrill as he mounts 

 two hundred— three hundred— four hundred feet 

 into the dusky sky, and hangs— hangs a whirling 

 blur on the blue, and drops— headlong,, with a 

 [220] 



