226 Dream of Yellow-Throat [FOURTH WEEK 



ghostly owl; the ruby of the hummingbird dies out as 

 the gaudy flowers of day close their petals, and the gray 

 wraiths of sphinx moths appear and sip nectar from the 

 spectral moonflowers. 



********* 

 With feet shod with silence, let us creep near a dense 

 tangle of sweetbrier and woodbine late some summer 

 evening and listen to the sounds of the night-folk. How 

 few there are that our ears can analyse! We huddle close 

 to the ground and shut our eyes. Then little by little 

 we open them and set our senses of sight and hearing at 

 keenest pitch. Even so, how handicapped are we com- 

 pared to the wild creatures. A tiny voice becomes audible, 

 then dies away, entering for a moment the narrow range 

 of our coarse hearing, and finishing its message of 

 invitation or challenge in vibrations too fine for our ears. 



********* 



Were we crouched by a dense yew hedge, bordering an 

 English country lane, a nightingale might delight us, a 

 melody of day, softened, adapted, to the night. If the air 

 about us was heavy with the scent of orange blossoms of 

 some covert in our own southland, the glorious harmony 

 of a mocking-bird might surge through the gloom, - 

 assuaging the ear as do the blossoms another sense. 



But sitting still in our own home tangle let us listen, - 

 listen. Our eyes have slipped the scales of our listless 

 civilised life and pierce the darkness with the acuteness of 

 our primeval forefathers; our ears tingle and strain. 



A slender tongue of sound arises from the bush before 

 us. Again and again it comes, muffled but increasing in 



