INTRODUCTORY CHAPTERS.
to tell the hours, adding to each—“All’s well.” Then the Whip-poor—will calls, and the Owls answer, hooting, laughing, purring, according to the specific note.
When you go through garden, lane, and wood, on your happy quest, circling the marshes that will not yield you foothold, remember that if you wish to hear the Spring Song and identify the singers, you must yourself be in tune, and you must be alert in keeping the record, lest the troop slip by through the open doorway of the trees, leaving you to regret your carelessness all the year.
As you listen to the song and look at the birds, many will disappear, and you will know that these are the migrants who have gone to their various breeding haunts; and that those who are busy choosing their building sites, and are carrying straw, clay and twigs, are the summer residents. Then you must glide quietly among the trees to watch the next scene of the bird year—the building of the nest—which is the motive of the Spring Song, and you will feel that in truth—
“Hard is the heart that loveth nought
In May.”
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