Page:Literary pilgrimages of a naturalist (IA literarypilgrima00packrich).pdf/266

 shadows of the Sandwich range add to the cool gloom which wells upward from the deep gorge which is the heart of the mountains.

On the way, as the water thrushes and Maryland yellowthroats sing from the thickets near the water, so the oven-bird sends his aggressive staccato from the middle distances of the higher trees. I never knew an oven-bird to sing from either a tree top or a low thicket. Always he sits on a limb well up the trunk yet well beneath the shade also, and sends forth that aggressive, eager call for knowledge. "Teach us, teach us, teach us," he cries to the wood gods, nor is he ever satisfied with his schooling, but applies persistently for more. The oven-bird is the very voice of the spirit of modern learning, crying always, in the wilderness of knowledge attained, for more knowledge. The wood gods have taught him much. Invisibility for himself he has almost learned. He sits like a knot on a speckled brown limb, and his speckled brown breast is so much like it that he may sing long there within a little distance of your eye before you see him. Invisibility for his nest he and his demure brown wife have learned