162 STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST. 



sionally, during an interval of silence, the night-jar, as 

 he flies invisibly over our head,* twangs his wings on a 

 sudden descent through the air in pursuit of his aerial 

 prey, making a sound that to the superstitious, who are 

 unacquainted with the habits of the bird, is fearful and 

 mysterious. The first time I heard this sound, which 

 resembles the snapping of a viol string, was in my 

 school-days, when walking homeward with three of my 

 school-fellows, at midnight, on a solitary turnpike-road. 

 Not knowing the cause of it, we were affected with a 

 peculiar sensation of awe, which was not relieved until 

 daylight revealed to us the birds still circling above our 

 heads. 



Often while thus affected with a sensation of mys 

 tery bordering on that of sublimity, and in the midst of 

 a stillness that is somewhat awful, all serious emotions 

 will be put to flight, by a sudden chorus of bull-frogs 

 from a neighboring pool. These sounds, in themselves 

 inharmonious, are so suggestive of the sweetness and 

 the quiet of a summer evening in the woods, that they 

 seldom fail to impress the mind with agreeable emo 

 tions. In the course of our midnight saunterings, 

 when we are near any collection of water, the shriek of 

 the common green frog is heard incessantly, at short in 

 tervals, and the trilling voice of the toad, so continual 

 by day, occasionally breaks the silence of night. The 

 common tree-frog, the prophet of summer showers, 

 which is seldom heard except in damp days, keeps up 

 a constant garrulity, ending only with sunrise, during 

 all still nights in the month of June. 



There is no perfect stillness on a summer night. 



* This sound is said to be produced by the open mouth of the bird, 

 as he darts swiftly through the air in pursuit of an insect. 



