SPORT AND SC1KKCE. 188 



than the sunset. I saw them, as a boy, almost day by 

 day, and recorded the meteors in the evening. It 

 seems to me that I used to see scores of meteors of 

 various degrees of brightness. Once the path, the 

 woods, the fields, and the distant hills were lit as if 

 with a gigantic electric light; I was so interested in 

 tracing the well-known scene so suddenly made 

 apparent in the darkness that it was not for some 

 seconds I thought of looking for the bolide, but even 

 then I was in time to see it declining just before 

 extinction. Others who have been out with their guna 

 have, of course, seen exactly the same things ; I do 

 not mention them to claim for myself any special 

 powers of observation, but as instances of the way in 

 which sport brings one in contact with nature. Other 

 sportsmen, too, must have smiled at the marvel made 

 of such appearances by clever and well-educated, but 

 indoor, people. 



This very spring (1883), as I walked about a town 

 in the evening, I used to listen to find if I could 

 hear any one mention the zodiacal light, which, just 

 after sunset, was distinctly visible for a fortnight 

 at a time. It was more than usually distinct, a perfect 

 cone, reaching far up into the sky among the western 

 stars. No one seemed to observe it, though it faced 

 them evening after evening. Here was an instance 

 in the opposite direction a curious phenomenon 

 even now rather the subject of hypothesis than of 

 demonstration, entirely overlooked. The common 

 phenomenon made a marvel, and the unexplained 

 phenomenon unnoticed. Both in the eyes of a thought- 

 ful person arc equally wonderful ; but that point of view 



