SILENCE AND MUSIC 163 



ever comes from a great distance, out of the sky : and 

 you are always in the centre of it ; and the effect is as 

 of an innumerable company of invisible beings, forming 

 an unbroken circle as wide as the horizon, chanting an 

 everlasting melody in one shrill, unchanging tone. You 

 may hear it continuously for hours, yet look in vain to 

 see a bird ; I have strained my sight, gazing for an hour, 

 and have not seen one rising or coming back to earth, 

 and have looked up and listened in vain to hear one 

 singing overhead. And I have looked all about the 

 sky with my strong glasses without being able to detect 

 one small brown speck on the vast blue expanse. This 

 was because the birds on these smooth, close-cropped 

 hills, especially in the dry months of July and August, 

 were really very few and far between so far indeed 

 that not a bird came within ken. And yet on account 

 of the immense distance the sound travels you can hear 

 the voices of hundreds. 



The highest notes of the lark on these hills may, I 

 believe, be heard three miles away : that sound carries 

 three times as far on these heights as it does on the 

 level country I am positive; and if this be so the 

 highest notes of all the birds singing on a windless day 

 within a circuit of eighteen miles are audible. Many, 

 probably most of the birds one hears are singing over 

 distant corn-fields ; but the fields are too far to be seen, 

 or they are on slopes behind interposing summits and 

 ridges. It may happen (it has been my experience 

 many scores of times) that no bird is near enough for 



