Rotes of tbe 1FU0bt 



Crossing through bushes that have grown 

 breast-high on a neglected tract, I still heard the 

 rattling squeak of the night-hawk, and saw sev- 

 eral, or the same bird many times. They are 

 crepuscular rather than nocturnal, as a general 

 thing, but the warm air to-night, although so 

 late, kept insect-life on the wing, and so the mos- 

 quito-hawk remained abroad. Here, as usual, 

 the habits and food-supply are closely linked, 

 and as the latter varies continually and in differ- 

 ent localities, it is not strange that observers 

 differ a good deal. 



As there were no cattle grazing here to-night, 

 I was the most conspicuous moving object on 

 the meadows, and I wondered if I was watched 

 as I had been watching. Whether so or not, 

 it was with no real pleasure that dark objects 

 before me would suddenly disappear, as if 

 crouching in the weeds, and no more show 

 themselves. It was in every case probably a 

 trick of the shadows, but, then, how can one be 

 certain of this ? To be shoulder deep in a dense 

 jungle of stout weeds and thinking, at the same 

 time, even of impossible danger, is not calculated 

 to increase one's interest in moonlight; but it was 

 then as bad to retrace my steps as to go forward, 

 and at last, with a feeling akin to relief, if not 

 actually that, I stood on the shining, sandy, 

 pebbly beach of the river. I reached the stream 

 near where Peter Kahn, the Swedish naturalist, 

 41 



