A Hunt for the Pyxie 67 



valley trembled with the ringing whistle of 

 a thousand red-wings. A few swallows — the 

 first of their kind to return — darted over the 

 wide waters and rested on proje6ling branches 

 . of trees that floods had stranded on the 

 islands. The sprightly kill-deers ran with 

 such dainty steps over the sand that I could 

 not find their footprints. They, too, were 

 pioneer birds, but none the less light-hearted 

 because alone. They sang with all their last 

 year's earnestness, scattering music among 

 the marshes where frogs were now holding 

 high carnival. They were very tame, at 

 least so far as we were concerned, but a little 

 in doubt as to what a stray hawk might be 

 about. But they left us only to make room 

 for others, and whether we looked riverward 

 or landward mattered not : it was birds, birds, 

 birds ! Here a hundred sparrows in an oak, 

 there a troop of snow-birds in the bushes, a 

 whistling titmouse sounding his piercing 

 notes, the plaintive bluebird floating over- 

 head, the laugh of the loon at the bend 

 of the river, and buzzards searching for 

 stranded herring where the seine had been 

 drawn. 



A flock of herons, too, passed overhead. 



