partridge drumming upon his log Hark! still again, to that quavering note, resembling somewhat the voice of the tree-frog when the storm is gathering, but not so clear and shrill.  It is the call of the raccoon, as he clambers up some old forest tree, and seats himself among the lowest of its great limbs.  Listen to the almost human halloo, the “hoo! hohoo, hoo!” that comes out from the clustering foliage of an ancient hemlock.  It is the solemn call of the owl, as he sits among the limbs, looking out from between the branches with his great round grey eyes.  Listen again and you will hear the voice of the catbird, the brown thrush, the chervink, the little chickadee, the wood robin, the blue-jay, the wood sparrow, and a hundred other nameless birds that live and build their nests and sing among these old woods.

But go a little nearer the lake, and you will have a concert that will drown all these voices in its tumultuous roar.  Compared to these feeble strains, it is the crashing of Julien’s hundred brazen instruments to the soft and sweet melody of Ole Bull’s violin.  Come with me to this rocky promontory; stand with me on this moss-covered boulder, which forms the point.  On either hand is a little bay, the head of which is hidden around among the woods.  See! over against us, on the limb of that dead fir tree, which leans out over the water, is a bald eagle, straightening with his hooked beak the feathers of his wings, and pausing now and then to look out over the water for some careless duck of which to make prey.  See! he has leaped from his perch, has spread his broad pinions, and is soaring upward towards the sky.  See! how he circles round and round, mounting higher and higher at every gyration.  He is like a speck in the air.  But see! he is above the mountains now, and how like an arrow he goes, straight forward, with no visible motion to his wings.  He has laid his course for some lake, deeper in the wilderness, beyond that range of hills, and he is there, even while we are talking of his flight.  A swift bird, the swiftest of all the birds, is the eagle, when he takes his descending stoop from his place away up in the sky.  He cleaves the air like a bullet, and so swift is his career that the eye can scarcely trace his flight.  But, hark! all is still now, save the piping notes of the little peeper along the shore.  Wait, however, a moment.  There, hear that venerable podunker off to the right, with his deep bass, like the sound of a brazen serpent.  Listen! another deep voice on the left has fallen in.  There, another right over against us! another and another still! a dozen! a hundred! a thousand! ten thousand! a million of them! close by us! far off! on the right hand and on the left! here! there! everywhere! until above, around us, all through the woods, all along the shore, all over the lake is a solid roar, impenetrable to any other sound, surging and swaying, rolling and swelling as if all the voices in the world were concentrated in one stupendous concert.