NOON AND MIDNIGHT. 377 



telescope as requested, and there, within less than a single degree of 

 its computed place, and flinging back its light from the enormous 

 distance of more than three billions of miles, was the planet of 

 Leverrier's analysis, with a diameter, magnitude, and orbit all 

 as calculated and predicted. It was a glorious triumph, the most 

 wonderful achievement in the annals of a science where all is 

 wonder. 



Publicly and privately has this query been put to us Is it 

 unusual to hear a pigeon cooing at midnight, and the owl hooting 

 in bright noonday 1 We answer very unhesitatingly that it is 

 unusual, so unusual in the case of the owl at least, that in a quarter 

 of a century's familiar and friendly intercourse with our wild-birds 

 under all possible circumstances, we have never heard an owl hoot 

 except " darkling," as Milton has it, that is, from out the darkness 

 or sombre shade. Even at night, if the moon is shining bright, it 

 never hoots from a spot on which the moonbeams fall in full 

 flood ; it selects the deepest shadow even in faint moonlight when 

 uttering its eerie notes. It will hoot in twilight, and it will hoot 

 when the heavens are bright ablaze with the most brilliant corusca- 

 tions of the aurora, but never, so far as our experience has extended, 

 does it hoot in honest daylight or even in moonlight, except when, 

 as we have said, it is itself in deep shade. We have kept pets of 

 all our native species of owls, and most interesting pets they make, 

 and though, when angry or in any way out of sorts, it will utter a 

 ready hiss, ending in a curious rasping guttural, we have never known 

 it to hoot except in the darkness of night, and, more rarely, in the 

 dim, uncertain light of evening or morning twilight. The cooing 

 of a pigeon at midnight, while it may be said to be unusual, is yet 

 a thing that, under certain circumstances, may be heard at any time. 

 Many birds, captives in cage or aviary, frequently sing short and 

 incomplete strophes of their special song in the warm stillness of 

 summer nights, evidently in their dreams. Others, in their 



