THE SCENERY OF NIGHT 



have come with a rush within the last week, the 

 banks showing in some places quite large patches of 

 them, especially railway embankments, and the mos- 

 chatel is in full blossom. The pipistrelle bat is out 

 every day at dusk often, in the cheating light, grey,' 

 like some great moth, and filmy to transparence 

 and one evening in March I saw the noctule flying 

 slowly much nearer the ground than usual. This 

 is very early for the noctule, which one does not 

 expect till the swifts come in May, or much after 

 the swifts leave in August. It is, perhaps, the 

 deepest and longest sleeper of all hibernators in 

 England. The hours of consciousness are but a 

 fraction of this strange existence. 



Nature's Grand Caravan 



In his song flights, the skylark does not spring 

 straight up but spires and drifts. But the song at 

 an end, during his descent often he will drop head 

 foremost to the ground, falling swiftly and dead 

 straight from a height of fifteen or twenty yards. 

 His head, being much the heavier end, carries him 

 to the earth like a stone, but there is no danger of 

 striking the ground, as he will always recover in 

 time, and automatically. Probably the straight drop 

 of the kestrel on its prey seventy feet or more below 

 is done in the same way. In other English birds 

 this dropping habit is not so common. When the 



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