this remote height. He half shut them to his body
and dived head foremost on a perilous slant. Then, just as he must
be dashed to pieces on the gray rock of the ledge on which I sat,
he spread them wide, caught the air that sang through the wide-spread
primaries with a clear, deep-toned note, and rose again;
and in his "peent, peent" was a quaint note of self-satisfaction
and self-praise.

[Illustration: The Sun sifting and winnowing his Gold for Sunset]

It is customary to ascribe actions of this sort on the part of a
bird to a desire to please and astound the mate who is supposed to
look on with fervent admiration. Sometimes this may be the case,
but I think more often the bird, like my nighthawk, does it to
please himself. There was no mate in sight when this nighthawk did
his sky coasting, nor did any appear afterward. It was after the
mating season and I think the bird did it in just pure joy in his
own dare-deviltry. He liked to see how near he could come to
breaking his neck without actually doing it. In the same way a
male woodcock will keep up his shadow-dancing antics long after
the nesting season is over, and the partridge drums more or less
the year around. The other bird may have much admiration for these
actions if she sees them, but never half so much as the bird who
performs. Nothing could equal that.

The most beautiful moonlight nights we have are those on which the
moon is an hour or two late. Then we see the day merge into real
darkness as velvety shadows slip quietly up out of the earth and
dance together. These congregated under the pines at first, last
night, and waited a bit before they dared the shelter of deciduous
trees. Long after that they huddled on the margins of the open
pasture as bathers do on the pond shore when the water is cold,
seeming to put dark toes into the clear light and then withdraw
with a shudder. When they all went in I do not know, for I was
watching the sky. By and by I looked back at the pasture and the
open places in the wood, and all alike were filled with a wavering
crowd that seemed to trip lightly and noiselessly as if in a
minuet. Little by little they blotted out familiar outlines till
only the tallest of pines looming dark against the lighter horizon
had form. All else was a void, not that of chaos but a soft cosmos
of completion.

[Illustration: Sunrise over the Pond]

It is singular how long one may look at this complete darkness and
not note the danci