298 NORWAY. 



actual, though unrecognisable noise. I do not refer to 

 gnats and flies so much as to those atomic insects whose 

 little persons are never seen, and whose individual voices 

 are never heard, but whose collective hum is a fact 

 that is best proved by the silence that follows its 

 cessation. 



In the evening these all retire to rest, and night i? 

 marked by a deep impressive stillness, which we are apt 

 erroneously to suppose is altogether the result of that 

 noisy giant man having betaken himself to his lair. 

 Yet this difference between night and day was only 

 noticeable when we were alone, or very quiet ; the 

 preponderating noises resulting from conversation or 

 walking were more than sufficient to dispel the sweet 

 influence. 



We were often very far wrong in our ideas of time. 

 Once or twice, on landing and going into a hamlet on 

 the coast, we have been much surprised to find the 

 deepest silence reigning everywhere, and, on peeping in 

 at a window, to observe that the inhabitants were all 

 in bed, while the sun was blazing high in the heavens. 



Sometimes, too, on returning from a shooting or fishing 

 expedition, I have seen a bush or a tree full of small birds, 

 each standing on one leg, with its head thrust under its 

 wing and its round little body puffed up to nearly twice 

 its usual size, and have thus been reminded that the 

 hours for rest had returned. Of course a little observa- 

 tion and reflection would at any time have cleared up our 

 minds as to whether day or night was on the wing 



