1907 ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 81 



available scientific skill is being brougbt to bear on the problem, while 

 ample financial support bas been provided by tbe State. Both Dr. Howard 

 and myself are very hopeful for the successful outcome of this undertaking. 

 If it can not be gained under present conditions, it can not be gained at all. 

 "While such great insect invasions are at first glance most discourag- 

 ing, I am not one of those who regard them wholly as an unmixed evil. I 

 believe that there is in them a certain element of benefit to the community at 

 large. By the attacks of these hordes of insect pests we gain a better 

 appreciation of the value of our trees and crops. We are led to study their 

 needs more closely and to administer to those needs more thoughtfully and 

 efficiently than before, and from thus getting in closer contact with a few 

 forms of life our interests and sympathies become broadened in their rela- 

 tion to the whole living world." 



VOICES OF THE NIGHT. 

 By Rev. Thomas W. Fyles, D.C.L., F.L.S., Levis, P.Q. 



Eight years of my early life in Canada were spent in a very beautiful, 

 but comparatively newly settled district in which there was much of the 

 primeval forest remaining. Some of the first settlers were still living there 

 when I took up my abode in the neighborhood. These men told of the 

 nightly howling of the wolves on the hills when they first began to clear 

 the lower lands, and of their encounters with various wild animals in the 

 woods. 



My duties at that time took me frequently from home, and my solitary 

 return journeys were necessarily made at night. Driving on the mountain 

 roads, and through the forest, and by the lakes and streams of the locality, 

 I had fine opportunities for studying the "Night Side of Nature" — I use 

 the words in a different sense from that in which Mrs. Crowe used them. 



I pity the man who, living in the country, cannot find, at all hours, 

 by day or night, in summer or winter, sights and sounds to interest and in- 

 ^struct him. I pity the man to whom 



" The gracious prodigality of Nature 

 The balm, the bliss, the bfeauty and the bloom " 



do not appeal. A solitary drive on a country road has always been to me 

 an occasion for rich enjoyment. The many voices of animate creatures — ■ 

 aye, and by a figure, of inanimate objects, also, have formed for me, many 

 a time, a concert well worth listening to. 



To speak of the voices of inanimate things I shall never forget one 

 glorious night when the Aurora Borealis held possession of the sky. From 

 the zenith to the horizon, like the ribs of a vast umbrella, but streaming, 

 quivering, vibrating, the rays descended on every side, I stood in admira- 

 tion, and became conscious of a strange sound. Was I mistaken? I listen- 

 ed intently. I could hear the distant fall of the water over the mill-dam — 

 it was distinct from that. It was like the gentle shaking out of a stiff piece 

 of silken goods. It was a sound of which travellers in Arctic regions have 

 told us — it was the voice of the Aurora. 



Who is there who has passed through a grove of pines in the darkness 

 but has noticed the slumberous sighing of the foliage shaken by the night 

 air? I have often listened to it. 



