188 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



occupying the spaces rightfully, — grand, primeval, 

 aboriginal sound. There is no whisper in it of the 

 Buckleys, the Flints, the Hosmers who recently squatted 

 here, nor of the first parish, nor of Concord Fight, nor 

 of the last town meeting. 



Dec. 19, 1856. As I stand here, I hear the hooting of 

 my old acquaintance the owl in Wheeler's Wood. 1 Do 

 I not oftenest hear it just before sundown ? This sound, 

 heard near at hand, is more simply animal and guttural, 

 without resonance or reverberation, but, heard here from 

 out the depths of the wood, it sounds peculiarly hollow 

 and drum-like, as if it struck on a tense skin drawn 

 around, the tympanum of the wood, through which all 

 we denizens of nature hear. Thus it comes to us an ac- 

 credited and universal or melodious sound ; is more than 

 the voice of the owl, the voice of the wood as well. The 

 owl only touches the stops, or rather wakes the rever- 

 berations. For all Nature is a musical instrument on 

 which her creatures play, celebrating their joy or grief 

 unconsciously often. It sounds now, hoo | hoohoo (very 

 fast) | ho.o-rer | hoo. 



May 20, 1858. Saw in the street a young cat owl, 

 one of two which Skinner killed in Walden Woods yes- 

 terday. It was almost ready to fly, at least two and a 

 half feet in alar extent ; tawny with many black bars, 

 and darker on wings. Holmes, in Patent Office Report, 2 

 says they " pair early in February." So I visited the 

 nest. It was in a large white pine close on the north side 



1 [Near Walden Pond.] 



2 [1856, p. 122, in paper on " Birds Injurious to Agriculture," by 

 Ezekiel Holmes, M. D., of Winthrop, Maine, pp. 110-160.] 



