COUNTRY SOUNDS 107 



visible, a pair of dabchicks, diving every minute or 

 two, and uttering now and then the gentlest possible 

 zvhit-whit which one would not have heard if the 

 hush had not been almost inviolate. Now and 

 again a silvery trout leaped high, suggesting Ex- 

 calibur; but that was all till suddenly a ring-dove 

 gave voice, with its deep, rich coo-roo, wonderfully 

 soothing and tender. (One must not allow agri- 

 cultural interests to obtrude on such occasions.) 

 Not far off, some one, we know not why, had set fire 

 to a giant ant-hill, which was flaming on the top 

 and glowing deep red in its recesses. But from 

 the conflagration, with its tens of thousands of 

 victims, and from the melee hurrying from the 

 burning city there came no sound at all. It is not 

 so much that the country is sparsely peopled with 

 animals a fallacious impression due to the " crypto- 

 zoic " habits of the great majority it is simply 

 that relatively few animals act rapidly on matter, 

 for that is the cause of sounds like the wood- 

 pecker's hammering, or the snipe's drumming; 

 and that most of our animals have soft voices, or 

 have not very much to say. 



Just as people vary considerably in acuteness of 

 vision, so some hear many sounds which escape 

 others. Thus a keen-eared correspondent tells me 

 that he hears the stroke of a bat's wing and the 

 closing of its jaws on an insect, the munching of a 

 caterpillar, and the rustle of an earthworm. 



In midsummer in the North of Scotland there is 

 hardly any darkness at all one can sometimes see 



