WAYS OF NATURE 



One summer day a friend of mine was out there ob- 

 serving them; a lark was soaring and singing in the 

 sky above him. An old Irishman came along, and 

 suddenly stopped as if transfixed to the spot ; a look 

 of mingled delight and incredulity came into his 

 face. Was he indeed hearing the bird of his youth ? 

 He took off his hat, turned his face skyward, and 

 with moving lips and streaming eyes stood a long 

 time regarding the bird. " Ah," my friend thought, 

 " if I could only hear that song with his ears ! " How 

 it brought back his youth and all those long-gone 

 days on his native hills ! 



The power of bird-songs over us is so much a mat- 

 ter of association that every traveler to other coun- 

 tries finds the feathered songsters of less merit than 

 those he left behind. The stranger does not hear 

 the birds in the same receptive, uncritical frame of 

 mind as does the native; they are not in the same 

 way the voices of the place and the season. What 

 music can there be in that long, piercing, far-heard 

 note of the first meadowlark in spring to any but 

 a native, or in the " o-ka-lee " of the red-shouldered 

 starling as he rests upon the willows in March ? A 

 stranger would probably recognize melody and a 

 wild woodsy quality in the flutings of the veery 

 thrush; but how much more they would mean to 

 him after he had spent many successive Junes 

 threading our northern trout-streams and encamp- 

 ing on their banks ! The veery will come early in 

 34 



