i8 ANNOYANCE OF WIND NOISES 



cartilaginous slates and tiles and gutters attached 

 to our heads and sets them vibrating. It is a pure 

 annoyance, a flap-flapping as of flags; murmurings 

 and rumblings mixed with sibilant sounds, also a 

 good deal of thunder. It hinders hearing, and to get 

 rid of it we are compelled to turn the head aside. 



I take it that all animals with large ears are in some 

 degree subject to this annoyance; it could not be 

 otherwise, since their ears must vibrate in the wind 

 like ours, and more than ours, and so create sound; 

 but I also think that they are able to minimise the 

 annoyance by slight voluntary, or perhaps automatic, 

 movements of the ears to change the angle at which 

 the wind strikes them. 



But the wind is a long subject, and now I'm at it, 

 I must go on about it in the next part. 



