A second thing that interested me was his choice of blossoms. My neighbor’s canna bed is made up in about equal parts of two kinds of plants, one with red blossoms, the other with yellow. The hummer went to the red flowers only. He must have probed a hundred, I should say. As for the yellow ones, he seemed not to know they were there. Now, was not this a plain case of color preference? It looked so, surely; but I remembered that hummingbirds are persistent haunters of the yellow blossoms of the jewel-weed, and concluded that something besides a difference of color must account for what appeared to be this fellow’s well-considered line of conduct. It is hard work, but as far as possible, let us abstain from hasty generalizations. There is no music sweeter than wood silence. I am enjoying it now. It is not strictly silence, though it is what we call by that name. There is no song. No one speaks. The wind is not heard in the branches. But there is a nameless something in the air, an inaudible noise, or an audible stillness, of which you become conscious if you listen for it; a union of fine sounds, some of which, as you grow inwardly quiet, you can separate from the rest--beats of distant crickets, few and faint, and a hum as of tiny wings. Now an insect passes near, leaving a buzz behind him, but for a second only. Then, before you can hear it, almost, a frog out in the swamp yonder has let slip a quick, gulping, or string-snapping syllable. Once a small bird’s wings are heard, just heard and no more. Far overhead a goldfinch passes, with rhythmic calls, smooth and soft, not so much sounds as a more musical kind of silence. The morning sun strikes aslant through the wood, illuminating the trunks of the trees, especially a cluster of white birches. A lovely sisterhood! I can hardly take my eyes from them. In general all the leaves are motionless, but now and then a tree, or it may be a group of two or three at once, is jostled for an instant by a touch too soft for my coarser human apprehension. “_Dee-dee_,” says a titmouse; “Here,” answers a flicker. But both speak under their breath, as if they felt the spell of the hour. Listen! was that a hyla or a bird? There is no telling, so elusive and so distant-seeming was the sound. And anon it has ceased altogether.