. Hours in my garden, and other nature-sketches. With 138 illus. Natural history. 122 Up in the Morning Early. There, look you, goes a great green dragon-fly, with his myriad eyes—the first we have seen to-day—his gauzy wings giving a kind of subdued sound, or are our ears deceived between this and something else, say, the first faint stirrings of the field cricket ? We can hardly tell, for the humming in the air increases round us as we sit in this benignant little natural arbour of ours, midway in our morning walk, and we find more and more difficulty in reliably differentiating separate sou
. Hours in my garden, and other nature-sketches. With 138 illus. Natural history. 122 Up in the Morning Early. There, look you, goes a great green dragon-fly, with his myriad eyes—the first we have seen to-day—his gauzy wings giving a kind of subdued sound, or are our ears deceived between this and something else, say, the first faint stirrings of the field cricket ? We can hardly tell, for the humming in the air increases round us as we sit in this benignant little natural arbour of ours, midway in our morning walk, and we find more and more difficulty in reliably differentiating separate sounds. The distant and the near, too, get more and more mixed up in the sense. Now come soft and faint on the new stirring wind the low lowings of kine from distant fields; the cockcrows in challenge pass over to and from the neighbouring farms; and is it possible that that is the distant hooting of an owl even in daylight from some woody recess into which the early sun-rays do not penetrate ? And, listen, can that really be the woodpecker at his work already, tap, tap, tapping the old elm tree ? There goes a little dipper, very rare here, with bright flash on his wing; he is making his way to the main stream up yonder, the rivulets or branches having waned to mere threads in the recent drought; and we have now and then the sibilous cry of the willow-wren or chiff-chaff, and the delicious dropping music of the chaffinches from hedge and orchard. Ha ! there goes a bullfinch, as if he had some pressing. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original Japp, Alexander H. (Alexander Hay), 1839-1905. New York, Macmillan & Co.
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookp, booksubjectnaturalhistory
