WAYS OF NATURE 



hear them at all. The sound of a boy's penny 

 whistle there in the grove or the meadow would 

 separate itself more from the background of nature, 

 and be a greater challenge to the ear, than is the 

 strain of the thrush or the song of the sparrow. 

 There is something elusive, indefinite, neutral, about 

 bird-songs that makes them strike obUquely, as it 

 were, upon the ear ; and we are very apt to miss 

 them. They are a part of nature, the Nature that 

 lies about us, entirely occupied with her own affairs, 

 and quite regardless of our presence. Hence it is 

 with bird-songs as it is with so many other things 

 in nature — they are what we make them; the ear 

 that hears them must be half creative. I am always 

 disturbed when persons not especially observant 

 of birds ask me to take them where they can hear 

 a particular bird, in whose song they have become 

 interested through a description in some book. As 

 I listen with them, I feel like apologizing for the 

 bird : it has a bad cold, or has just heard some 

 depressing news; it will not let itself out. The 

 song seems so casual and minor when you make a 

 dead set at it. I have taken persons to hear the 

 hermit thrush, and I have fancied that they were all 

 the time saying to themselves, " Is that all ? " But 

 should one hear the bird in his walk, when the mind 

 is attuned to simple things and is open and recep- 

 tive, when expectation is not aroused and the song 

 comes as a surprise out of the dusky silence of the 

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