A WILDERNESS LABORATORY 155 



the stray cats pouncing on sleeping sparrows in 

 the shrubbery of Washington Square, or the 

 screech owls working havoc in the glades of 

 Central Park where the glare of the electric 

 lights is less violent. And I have not forgotten 

 the two-score gulls and swans with torn throats 

 — a single night's work of wild mink in the 

 Bronx. Nature is the same everywhere; only 

 here the sparrows are not alien immigrants, and 

 the light is not measured in kilowatts, and the 

 hacha tigers are not so sated that they kill for 

 pleasure. 



A sound broke in upon my reverie, so low at 

 first that it seemed but the droning hum of a 

 beetle's wing echoing against the hollow shield of 

 their ebony cases. It was deep, soothing, almost 

 hypnotic; one did not want it to cease. Then it 

 gained in volume and depth, and from the heart 

 of the bass there arose a terrible, subdued shrill- 

 ing — a muffled, raucous grating which touched 

 some secret chord of long-past fear. The whole 

 effect was most terrifying, but still one did not 

 desire it to cease. In itself it seemed wholly 

 suited to its present jungle setting; the emotion 

 it aroused was alien to all modern life. My 

 mind sped swiftly back over the intervening 



