An August Night 



or power, after fifty-four thousand 

 separate notes have been produced. 

 Some have evidently gone to sleep or 

 to breakfast, no matter which. A 

 few still "carry on." Then there is a 

 lapse. A few of them come wearily 

 back a little later. Then all subside 

 and switch to the day-time schedule. 



At five o'clock the usual perform- 

 ance at this season of the year upon 

 and underneath the awnings at the 

 bedroom windows, is put on. You 

 would say that a turkey or at least a 

 big Buff Cochin hen had somehow 

 landed on the cloth outside and slid 

 with desperate clawing down the steep 

 incline. The struggle for a footing is 

 quite strenuous, but soon over, for the 

 law of gravitation is still operative, 

 and an awning hanging at an angle of 

 forty-five degrees is built for skidding 

 or tobogganing, not for quiet comfort 

 so far as the bird creation is concerned. 

 But notwithstanding the fact that 

 this vain flapping and scratching is 



[i33] 



