IN A PALACE OF REEDS. 121 
go a shaft at an owl or a night heron. Read- 
ing over some of the notes I made at the time 
recalls the charmingly unique effect of certain 
sounds heard at waking moments in those out- 
door resting-hours : 
The leaping of bass, for instance, plash, 
plash, at unequal intervals of time and distance, 
breaking through the supreme quiet of mid- 
night, comes to one’s ears with a liquid, bub- 
bling accompaniment, not at all like anything 
else in the world. The mocking bird (AZimus 
Polyglottus) often starts from sleep in the scented 
foliage of the sweet-gum to sing a tender med- 
ley to the rising moon. At such time his 
voice reflects all the richness and shadowy 
dreamfulness of night. It blends into one’s 
sense of rest and becomes an element of en- 
joyment after one has fallen again into 
slumber. 
Frogs are night’s buffoons. ‘ Croak, croak, 
croak,” you hear one muttering, and with your 
eyes yet unopened and the silence and still- 
ness of sleep scarcely gone from you, you 
wonder where he is sitting. On what green 
tussock, with his big eyes jetting out and his 
angular legs akimbo, does he squat? Sud- 
denly “‘Chug!” You know how he leaped 
up, spread out his limbs, turned down his head 
and struck into the water like a shot. You 
chuckle grimly to yourself, turn over in your 
hammock, and all is forgotten. 
Then the screech-owl begins to whine in 
its tremulous, querulous falsetto, snapping its 
beak occasionally as if to remind the mice and 
small birds of its murderous desires. ‘The 
big horned-owl laughs and hoots far away in 
gloomy glens. The leaves rustle, the river 
