The trees are not altogether dependent upon their leaves for their music. The barren branches of fall and winter sing in a most attractive way. Their dry and discarded leaves litter the ground and carry on crackly songs of their own, or sing as they play tag in whirls of wind. The Elm is a pleasing autumn singer and the Willows, when covered with ice, rattle their twigs like a minstrel’s bones. As the winter wind hums around the Cottonwood Trees, it rocks the seed balls in their natural cradles with a sighing, crooning sound. This is the way the Tree sings to her babies! When the wind soughs through a hollow tree, it produces a ghostly sound suggestive of a mourning or dying person. A current of air rubbing two boughs together causes a scrunching sound which sends the shivers up one’s back. It is reasonable to believe that every tree and plant has its own individual voice as set in motion by the wind. A Nature-lover does not have much difficulty in distinguishing a great many. The desert Sage whistles in the wind; the Cedar laughs in the storm; the air rustles through a Wheat field; an agitated Sugar Cane or Corn field gives forth a sound like tinkling glass. The noise produced by a high wind in the Southern Smilax has been likened to a harp struck at random. The bursting pods of the Witch Hazel pop gently and the seeds fall among the dead leaves like so many buck shot; the Oxalis sends forth its seed-babies with the crack of a pistol shot. Members of the Bean family moan in the breeze like plaintive violins. The Squirting Cucumber gurgles not unlike certain frogs. The Sunflower is a professional drummer who rattles his seeds about in his pods. The Rattlesnake Iris holds its seed-capsule in such a way that it gives an excellent imitation of the warning noise of the reptile for which it is named. Catalpa pods snap like horse-whips, but Cat-Tails sigh like small reed instruments. Early man gained more inspiration and pleasure from the music of the plants than his wiser but more worldly successors. It is said that the idea for the first flute was obtained by listening to the wind sigh through the Reeds on the shore of a lake. The first stringed instrument was probably a fibre accidentally stretched across a hollow shell. The classic Aeolian harp consisted of a wooden frame containing a thin sounding-board over which were stretched a number of strips of cat-gut. If placed before a half-open window so that an air current strikes it sideways, it gives forth a great volume of harmonious notes in several octaves. This is a clear case of catching the music of the wind. In a cruder, less harmonious way, the Japanese glass tinklers of our day do the same thing. The humming of telegraph wires and the strange chirping of a wireless instrument are also a kind of singing.