114 BIRDS OF THE WAVE AND WOODLAND 



you hear it, it is all alone. A short while ago the whitethroat 

 was pouring out its little heart in an evening-song, and from 

 the copse came the chuckle of the roosting pheasant. A 

 night-jar had been purring over the golden furze that grows 

 up from among the purple heather, and on the other side of 

 the spinney an owl, on soft white lazy wing, had gone by 

 crying to its mate. Queer little noises, " flung out of their 

 holes " by rabbits, and others just as queer, but more inex- 

 plicable, from hedgerow and ditch, had told you that animal- 

 life was on foot and a-wing, and as you sate on the stile, in 

 the break of the high hedge, and saw the steam rising out of 

 the clover, and the white moths, "ermine" and "ghost," flash or 

 flutter among the sweet bloom, it seemed as if everything 

 was abroad, the day-things not yet asleep, the night-things 

 already astir. 



And all of a sudden the solitary corn-crake cries from 

 the wheat. At once the whole air seems to hush : the very 

 evening to listen. Crakc-crakc comes the cry, and there 

 gathers over the scene an indescribable atmosphere of com- 

 pletest tranquillity. Crakc-crakc. Far away, somewhere in 

 the dip beyond the rise, sounds a sheep-bell, and the chiding 

 voice of the shepherd's dog. But there is not a sound 

 besides. Crake-crake. And the mist creeps up the corn- 

 stalks, and covers the campions, and the air grows damp with 

 dew. It is going to be another hot day to-morrow, just as it 

 has been to-day. Crake-crake, cries the creeping rail, and 



