THE FAERY YEAR 



A Celestial Choir 



There is one sound perhaps even more the 

 property of this month than its deep quiet at night- 

 fall the hum in the air on a hot day. There are 

 usually a few days in each season when this music 

 of the myriads may be heard distinctly ; yet many 

 people, with a good sense of hearing, pass their 

 lives in the country without being conscious of it. 

 This year it was very noticeable in places for an 

 hour or two on the day on which the meadow- 

 brown butterflies appeared in thousands in almost 

 every grass field. A little after midday, hot sun- 

 shine followed the heavy showers which had beaten 

 to the ground the dust and particles, and left the 

 air fresh and perfectly clear. The hum was then at 

 its height. It will continue for several hours on 

 such a day without the least break. 



It is an entirely different thing from such familiar 

 music as the happy murmur of bees in the lime at 

 this season. In this case you can hear individual 

 insects, and, looking up and around, may detect the 

 performers. But, though on meadow-brown day 

 the atmosphere was so crystal clear because of the 

 cleansing storms of the morning, one could see 

 nothing of the cause of the humming air. 



Yet the number of performers which fill, say, a 

 mile of space with the sound, must be enormous. It 

 is true that a single bee, a single gnat or mosquito, 

 will make an astonishingly loud noise for its size. 

 If the bee and the mosquito were a hundred times 

 170 



