206 FEATHERED GAME 
feet—grasshoppers in blundering flight butt 
their heads against him as though they thought 
to put him to rout with their headlong charge,— 
bumblebees cross his path with droning note, 
and swallows career about him, making a feast 
off the tiny myriads which his march disturbs. 
Right and left go scurrying brown sparrows, 
and other small fowl rise unexpectedly from the 
stubble. Flocks of rusty-looking bobolinks, 
searcely to be known as the gay birds of two 
months ago, dash out from the oat patch with 
chirping discontent, and over all the breath of 
summer and perchance the air like a furnace. 
Suddenly another note, a gurgling, rippling, 
bubbling whistle, cuts short the gunner’s day 
dream, and as it sounds a second time he comes 
out from his sleepy state with a sudden start. 
It was that for which he has listened. Look 
where he may—right or left, above, ahead, be- 
hind, he sees no bird, but still the flute-like note 
is heard, and at last, a hundred yards away, his 
eye catches the flicker of sunlight on a pair of 
brown wings just as they are folded from their 
flight. That soft and mellow whistle has some 
peculiar quality, which, when it comes dropping 
