THE DREAM OF THE YELLOW-THROAT 



By C. WILLIAM BEEBE 



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ANY of us look 

 back to the days of 

 Columbus with 

 longing ; we chafe 

 at the thought of no 

 more continents to 

 discover ; n o u n- 

 known seas to en- 

 compass. But a t 

 our very doors is 

 a n " undiscovered 

 bourn e," from 

 which, while the traveler invariably re- 

 turns, yet he will have penetrated but 

 slightly into its mysteries. This un- 

 explored region is night. 



When the dusk settles down and the 

 creatures of sunlight seek their rest, a 

 new realm of life awakens into being. 

 The flaring colors and loud bustle of 

 the day fade and are lost, and in their 

 place come soft, gray tones and silence. 

 The scarlet tanager seeks some hidden 

 perch and soon from the same tree slips 

 a silent, ghostly owl ; the ruby of the 

 humming-bird dies out as the gaudy 

 flowers of day close their petals, and 

 the gray wraiths of sphinx moths ap- 

 pear and sip nectar from the spectral 

 moon-flowers. 



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With feet shod with silence, let us 

 creep near a dense tangle of sweet-brier 

 and woodbine late some summer even- 

 ing and listen to the sounds of the 

 night-folk. How few there are that our 

 ears can analyze! We huddle close to 

 the ground and shut our eyes. Then 

 little by little, we open them and set our 

 senses of sight and hearing at keenest 

 pitch. Even so, how handicapped are 

 we compared with the wild creatures. 

 A tiny voice becomes audible, then dies 

 away, — entering for a moment the nar- 

 row range of our coarse hearing, — and 



finishing its message of invitation or 

 challenge in vibrations too fine for our 

 ears. 



Were we crouched by a dense yew 

 hedge bordering an English country 

 lane, a nightingale might delight us, — 

 a melody of day, softened, adapted to 

 the night. If the air about us was 

 heavy with the scent of orange blos- 

 soms of some covert in our own south- 

 land, the glorious harmony of a mock- 

 ingbird might surge through the gloom, 

 — assuaging the ear as do the blossoms 

 another sense. 



But sitting still in our own home tan- 

 gle, let us listen, — listen. Our eyes have 

 slipped the scales of our listless civil- 

 ized life and pierce the darkness with 

 the acuteness of our primeval fore- 

 bears ; our ears tingle and strain. 



A slender tongue of sound arises 

 from the bush before us. Again and 

 again it comes, muffled but increasing 

 in volume. A tiny ball of feathers is 

 perched in the center of the tangle, w T ith 

 its beak hidden in the deep, soft plum- 

 age, but ever and anon the little body 

 throbs and the song falls gently on the 

 silence of the night : "I beseech you ! I 

 beseech you ! I beseech you !" A Mary- 

 land yellow-throat is asleep and singing 

 in its dreams. 



As we look and listen, a shadowless 

 something hovers overhead, and, look- 

 ing upward, we see a gray screech owl 

 silently hanging on beating wings. His 

 sharp ears have caught the muffled 

 song; his eyes search out the tangle, 

 but the yellow throat is out of reach. 

 The little hunter drifts away into the 

 blackness, the song ends, and the sharp 

 squeak of a mouse startles us. We rise 

 slowly from our cramped position and 

 quietly leave the mysteries of the night. 



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