VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 



By Ambrose L. Lane. 



The utterances of the various animals, birds, and insects 

 indigenous to any locality afford an interesting study to the nature 

 lover whose knowledge of wood craft is enhanced by what we 

 might describe as an educated sense of hearing, and distinguish- 

 ing the varied sources from which such sounds proceed. From 

 dawn to sunset it is a sterile portion of the country-side indeed 

 where the sight of such a person is not gladdened by many visual 

 observations, but as night falls and the mantle of darkness pre- 

 vents visible observation, the sounds which often reach the practised 

 ear make one aware of many continuous activities of the animal 

 life around, though the world be involved in mystic gloom or 

 almost impenetrable darkness. 



When the arctic cold rules in death-like stillness over the 

 snow laden northern forest, the almost overwhelming silence might 

 convince one that all nature is entombed in a death-like trance, 

 and such conditions prevail more or less during midwinter over 

 all the temperate climes, although as one approaches the more 

 clement latitudes, the ghostly silence of the winter*s night is more 

 prone to be interrupted by the occasional hoot of an owl, or call 

 of some night feeding bird; but when the icy chill of frosty calm 

 overspreads great northern wastes even those clamorous wild 

 fowl most active at midnight become strangely silent; probably 

 apprehensive of the freezing over of those open springs, and 

 estuaries where they have been accustomed to adjourn v^th voci- 

 ferous exuberance for nocturnal meals. 



In Africa, except for the frosty cold of the winter night on the 

 high veld which usually silences all but the dorp roosters, — ^how 

 we wish it would silence those, — many notes attest the nightly 

 activity of bird, beast or insects; the latter seldom heard during 



