322 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 
strikes through the rarifiecl atmosphere, stunning you like a 
pistol-shot close to the ear ! 
You turn ! They are the Cranes ! — your heart bounds 
from the shock with a gush of joy — ^you are no longer alone! 
There they are — half a mile to the right — see the snowy 
phalanx ascending into view over yon wave-like undulation 
of the prairie — with every stately stride uttering that loud 
and thumping cry, while their long quick-necks cross each 
other against the horizon, weaving in and weaving out, 
making strange figures on the blue, as they huddle, stalking 
to and fro confusedly at sight of the forlorn wanderer. 
How stately and how beautiful they are — tall as a tall man 
— the dazzling white of their plumage heightened by the 
black primary coverts of the wing ! — their motions how pic- 
turesque and gracefully solemn ! 
What a surprise how they bring the real earth back to you 
again ! That wild note has startled you before with its sud- 
den rolling croak, but upon far different and distant scenes. 
Perhaps it had been heard amidst native surroundings, as 
it has been by myself in Kentucky and through the South- 
western States, in which it alights during its fall migrations 
towards the South, and then how pleasant the associations it 
recalls thus in the friendless wilderness ! They seem as if 
they brought us news from those we loved — as if but yester- 
day they had alighted, as they passed, in their favorite field, 
upon our veritable homestead, and now came to us with the 
aroma of home upon their wings, annihilating space and 
softening absence 1 
But here is its winter home, and with us it had only been 
a sojourner by the way ; here it seems the incarnate spirit of 
the place, an embodiment of latitude sentinaling the repose 
of nature — its tall form overlooking the undulations of 
the plain with a keenness of vision surpassed only by the 
great vulture of the East — nothing can traverse these wastes 
without being challenged. 
Its tocsin shout rings upon the hurried ear of the Caman- 
