MOONLIGHT AND DAYBREAK 219 



rest ; a time of mystery this is, Nature keeping 

 her own secrets. There are certain influences 

 which, though felt by most, can never be ex- 

 plained. In one old-world district that I knew, 

 where for generations no change had ever 

 come, except in the usual course, the people 

 held a traditional belief that just before the 

 breaking of the day, when the last hour of 

 the night is the darkest, Nature looks on, 

 with hushed breath, at a struggle between the 

 powers of Light and those of Darkness. 



Those who love to study some of the pro- 

 blems which are so closely connected with our- 

 selves will not smile at a belief such as this, 

 childlike though it may seem. Nature may 

 be studied in all places and at all times, but 

 I have personally a special love for the calm 

 of the night, and the hush, and for the silence 

 of the snow. The popular idea is that night 

 is lonesome, t and the stillness of the snow with- 

 out life : but this is far from being the case ; in 

 the darkness and in the snow life stirs freely. 



I have seen the night fall, and watched 

 through it until the dawn of day, many a time, 

 just to hear the voices of the night, and if 

 matters should be favourable, perhaps to see 

 some of the creatures that owned these voices. 



