Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/35

the free salt air of the sea, but a little more gently to the lowly hillock than to the summit of Black Mount. Because of this loitering gentleness it has time to drop among the lingerers there all the wild aromas and soft perfumes of the marsh and pasture and bring all the soothing sounds of life to ears that for all I know hear them dreamily and approve. Quail, the first I have heard in New England for a long time, whistled cheerily one to another from nearby thickets. Nor did these seem fearful of man. One whistled as a wagon rattled by his hiding place on the dusty winding road, and held his perch beneath a berry bush till I approached so near that I could hear the full inflection of the soft note with which he prefixed his "bob white," see the swell of his white throat and the tilt of his head as he sent forth the call. A pair of mourning doves crooned in the old apple orchard and flew on whistling wings as I approached too near. I have heard heartache in the tones of these birds, but here their mourning seemed only the gentle sorrow of a mother's tones as she soothes a weary child, a mourning that voiced love and sympathy rather than pain. On