The Pond-Meadow, 89 



man of a cat-bird, perched on one of the beams, and 

 perking his inquisitive head from side to side, or to hear at 

 evening a song-sparrow pour forth his sweetest melody, 

 while all the meadow lies before him. The barn-swallows, 

 when their nesting time is o'er, range themselves in rows 

 along those nerves of the railroad, the telegraph wires, and 

 sing that short song for which they ought to be famous; 

 or they skim the velvety meadow grass, as if it were the sur- 

 face of a pond. Indeed the bay-meadow is so remarkably 

 pond-like in aspect, in the little capes and minor bays, that 

 the simile is quite a reasonable one. 



Many of the tides overflow a considerable stretch of 

 the only road crossed by the trestle, and looking down I 

 have often seen the fish swimming over the road itself. 

 At night they skip and jump about most recklessly, and it 

 is no wonder that many of them meet their death, and that 

 the bitterns and the musk-rats have an ample supply. 

 Occasionally in the spring and fall, when the tides are 

 exceptionally high, the low lying roads in the vicinity are 

 flooded quite deeply, and the water reaches two or three 

 feet up the hay stacks on the meadows, so that a cat-boat 

 might easily be sailed among them. 



At dusk, when the whippoorwills come flying across 

 the pond-meadow, near the junction of the trestle with the 

 upland, they go over the track instead of going between 

 the piles, as would be expected of such cover seeking 

 birds. They call most energetically at times, and are not 

 even frightened by the rumbling train that comes at 

 evening over the trestle. I used to sit often on one of the 

 cross beams, and the train would go rattling by, and 



