IV 

 HERONS AND RAILS 



AMERICAN BITTERN ; STAKE-DRIVER. 



June 14, 1851. As I proceed along the back road I 

 hear the lark still singing in the meadow, and the bob- 

 olink, and the gold robin on the elms, and the swallows 

 twittering about the barns. A small bird chasing a crow 

 high in the air, who is going home at night. All nature 

 is in an expectant attitude. Before Goodwin's house, at 

 the opening of the Sudbury road, the swallows are div- 

 ing at a tortoise-shell cat, who curvets and frisks rather 

 awkwardly, as if she did not know whether to be scared 

 or not. And now, having proceeded a little way down 

 this road, the sun having buried himself in the low cloud 

 in the west and hung out his crimson curtains, I hear, 

 while sitting by the wall, the sound of the stake-driver 

 at a distance, — like that made by a man pumping 

 in a neighboring farmyard, watering his cattle, or like 

 chopping wood before his door on a frosty morning, 

 and I can imagine like driving a stake in a meadow. 

 The pumper. I immediately went in search of the 

 bird, but, after going a third of a mile, it did not sound 

 much nearer, and the two parts of the sound did not 

 appear to proceed from the same place. What is the 

 peculiarity of these sounds which penetrate so far on 

 the keynote of nature? At last I got near to the brook 

 in the meadow behind Hubbard's wood, but I could 



