164 SUMMER 



in the early dawn. A moorhen calls sharply in one of its 

 nocturnal alarms, and instantly the singer is awake again, 

 pouring a loud recitation into the darkness. The song dies 

 away after midnight, when the confines of the new day are 

 near ; but even as late as August a sudden disturbance by 

 the river at any time of night will sometimes draw a burst of 

 song from a sedge-warbler hidden in the reeds. 



Sedge-warblers, like nightingales, are day-birds which 

 also sing at night ; but the nightjar is a true bird of dusk, 

 though it occasionally murmurs its curious music while the 

 sun is high. It does not begin to flit abroad till its prey of 

 moths appears in the darkening air ; but it will rise about 

 sunset to some bough in the quiet copses, and reel out its 

 music actively until it is time to feed. It is a strange bird 

 in many ways, but the reeling murmur which it pours forth 

 in the dusk is the feature which has most struck popular 

 imagination in this country. Hence comes its names of night- 

 jar, evejar, and evechurr ; while its other common name of 

 fern-owl suggests its owl-like flight and plumage and noc- 

 turnal habits. The nightjar's murmur is emphasised by the 

 growing stillness of the July nights, like the songs of the 

 sedge-warbler ; and it is more deeply in accordance with the 

 ebb of summer vitality which adds solemnity to the summer 

 darkness. It is a low and monotonous sound compared with 

 the songs of May. In May, indeed, it is apt to be overlooked 

 or neglected ; but now it sheds a soothing sound in the night, 

 and suggests the full but calmer current of the ageing year. 

 Unlike the cry of the corncrake to many ears, it does not 

 become wearisome, because its monotony is never absolute. 

 From time to time the jarring is slightly changed in tone, 

 like the distant sound of an autumn threshing-machine, which 

 it often recalls. In the stillness of the night the delicacy of 

 these modulations is emphasised ; they fascinate the ear by 

 their slightness and the precision of their effect. 



