奥尔多·利奥波德 译析/曹明伦

By September， the day breaks with little help from birds. A song sparrow may give a single half-hearted song， a woodcock may twitter overhead en route to his daytime thicket， a barred owl may terminate the night’s argument with one last wavering call， but few other birds have anything to say or sing about.

It is on some， but not all， of these misty autumn daybreaks that one may hear the chorus of the quail. The silence is suddenly broken by a dozen contralto voices， no longer able to restrain their praise of the day to come. After a brief minute or two， the music closes as suddenly as it began.

There is a peculiar virtue in the music of elusive birds. Songsters that sing from top-most boughs are easily seen and as easily forgotten; they have the mediocrity of the obvious. What one remembers is the invisible hermit thrush pouring silver chords from impenetrable shadows; the soaring crane trumpeting from behind a cloud; the prairie chicken booming from the mists of nowhere; the quail’s Ave Maria in the hush of dawn. No naturalist has even seen the choral act， for the covey is still on its invisible roost in the grass， and any attempt to approach automatically induces silence.

In June it is completely predictable that the robin will give voice when the light intensity reaches 0.01 candle power， and that the bedlam of other singers will follow in predictable sequence. In autumn， on the other hand， the robin is silent， and it is quite unpredictable whether the covey-chorus will occur at all. The disappointment I feel on these mornings of silence perhaps shows that things hoped for have a higher value than. The hope of hearing quail is worth half a dozen risings-in-the-dark.

My farm always has one or more coveys in autumn， but the daybreak chorus is usually distant. I think this is because the coveys prefer to roost as far as possible from the dog， whose interest in quail is even more ardent than my own. One October dawn， however， as I sat sipping coffee by the outdoor fire， a chorus burst into song hardly a stone’s throw away. They had roosted under a white-pine copse， possibly to stay dry during the heavy dews.

We felt honored by this daybreak hymn sung almost at our doorstep. Somehow the blue autumnal needles on those pines became thenceforth bluer， and the red carpet of dewberry under those pines became even redder.

到九月的時候，破晓已很少借助众鸟啼鸣。歌雀兴许还会心不在焉地来段清唱，山鹬在飞往其白天待的灌丛途中也许会在你头顶啁啾两声，横斑林鸮也可能会用最后一声颤鸣来结束其夜间辩论，但其他鸟儿几乎已无话可说，无歌想唱。

就是在某些个这样秋雾蒙蒙的黎明（并非每个秋日黎明），你也许会听见林鹑合唱。寂静会突然被十余个女低音歌手的歌声打破，似乎歌手们再也抑制不住对白日将至的赞美。歌声会延续短短的一两分钟，然后会像突然开始那样戛然而止。

禽鸟隐身表演的音乐，自有一种特殊的魅力。在高枝上演唱的歌唱家容易引人注目，但同样也容易被人遗忘，此类表演者因醒目而显平庸。令人难忘的是那些隐身音乐家，是从浓荫中倾泻出银铃般和声的画眉，是在高翔的云间吹奏小号的灰鹤，是从蒙蒙薄雾中敲出低沉鼓声的草原松鸡，是在黎明的寂静中合唱《万福马利亚》的林鹑。迄今尚无博物学家目睹林鹑合唱队的演出，因为合唱队总是躲在其草丛间的栖息地，任何接近那隐秘处的企图，都必然导致众鹑齐喑。

六月里，知更鸟会在光照亮到0.01烛光度时开始鸣唱，这是完全可以预知的;其他鸟儿会随之嘤嘤呖呖，这也是可以预知的。可是到了秋天，知更鸟不再亮歌喉，其他鸟儿是否还会齐声合唱，这就完全不可预知了。在这些没有鸟儿啼鳴的清晨，我会感到怅然若失，而这种失落感兴许能证明，人之所望总是比所得更有价值。……