108 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



to read at midnight, and there are not more than two 

 hours when the larks at least are not singing. The 

 days are now shortening quickly and the silent hours 

 must be longer, yet in the very dead of night we 

 hear the dwellers in darkness on the hunt. There 

 is the hedgehog^ for instance, which calls incisively 

 in the stillness with a peculiar voice between grunt 

 and squeal. Even in Aberdeenshire the whir of 

 the nightjar is sometimes heard and the loud clap 

 of its wings together, as it hawks for nocturnal 

 insects, or the vibrating " churr " of the male seated 

 lengthwise on a branch. The shriek of the barn- 

 owl and the tu-whit, tu-who of the tawny owl are 

 familiar night sounds, and some people can hear 

 the voice of bats. Soon after cock-crow one is 

 wakened by the rather startling, raucous bark of 

 certain black-headed gulls who come to see whether 

 there are any fragments left where the hens are 

 fed, and they are soon followed by the more cheerful 

 jackdaws. Then, on the adjacent moor, the cock 

 grouse welcomes the sun; swifts then begin their 

 chase they will be soon leaving us and their 

 half-triumphant, half-delirious cry, in bad weather 

 and in good, is the last thing we hear at night. 



Particular places have their characteristic sounds, 

 which we listen for expectantly. The moorland 

 would be incomplete without the melancholy cry 

 of the curlew, with a melodious ripple at the nesting- 

 time; in the bed of the stream we wait for the 

 oyster-catcher's alarm-whistle keep-keep; by the 

 estuary we enjoy the redshank's warning call with a 



