NIGHT WITCHERY. 57 
Who has listened to the zolian-harp of the telegraph? ! 
What wondrous harmony is here wooed from the passing breeze, 
or almost from the calm air itself—or from some remote tem- 
pest, perhaps—and reverberated in cathedral tones to the ear 
laid close against the resonant, weather-seasoned pole! Did the 
reader ever listen close against the dead pine-tree and marvel 
at the sounds of teeming life thus disclosed within—life which 
knows no night nor day nor rest? Think you that the wood- 
pecker in its snug cave aloft, or the squirrel in the hollow rail, 
has heard your stealthy footfall through its door-way? No; the 
tidings have come through turf and root and trunk, vibrated into 
their being. If you would know the haunting tenants of the si- 
lent beech by your side in the dark woods, lay your ear closely 
against its bark, when, if the trunk be roughly struck, the slight- 
est movement within its heart’ is betrayed in the vibrant wood 
and conducted to your ear. More than once in my strolls have 
I thus listened beneath the flicker’s hole, and heard the clinging 
claws apparently beneath the bark at my ear as the sharp head 
peered out from the little round door-way aloft. 
