"Here we first heard the mysterious aerial sound for which this region is noted. It put me in mind of the vibrating clang of a harp lightly and rapidly touched high up above the tree tops, or the sound of many telegraph wires swinging regularly and rapidly in the wind, or, more rarely, of faintly heard voices answering each other overhead. It begins softly in the remote distance, draws rapidly near with louder and louder throbs of sound and dies away in the opposite distance; or it may seems to wander irregularly about, the whole passage lasting from a few seconds to half a minute or more."
-'A preliminary Report on the Aquatic Invertebrate Fauna of the Yellowstone National Park, etc.' Bulletin of the United States Fish Commision for 1891, April 29, 1893, p. 215
"I have a very distinct recollection of the sound, vivid enough at least to teach me how imperfect my description of it is. Words describe an echo very inadequately when one is in ignorance of the original sound, and especially so when he is in doubt as to whether the sound is the echo of a noise or the noise itself."
-In a paper which was read before the Academy of Science and Art, Pittsburgh, Pa., March 18, 1892
"It had the same peculiar quality as that heard on Shoshone Lake and is just as difficult to describe. There was the same slight hint of metallic resonance and what one of the party called a kind of twisting sort of yow-yow vibration. There was a faint resemblance to the humming of telegraph wires, but the volume was not steady nor uniform. As I heard it at this time, it seemed to begin at a distance [and] grow louder overhead where it filled the upper air, and suggested a medley of wind in the tops of pine trees and in telegraph wires, the echo of bells after being repeated several times, the humming of a swarm of bees, and two or three other less definite sources of sound, making in all a composite which was not loud but easily recognized and not at all likely to be mistaken for any other sound in these mountain solitudes, but which might easily escape notice if one were surrounded by noises."
-Mr. F. H. Bradley, 1872
asleep before sunset
autumn
