,j6 STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. 



grasshopper imps among the sedges, the midnight swamp will 

 sing in our ears till morning. 

 Then there is 



" the loon's weird laughter far away " 



that comes up to us as we ascend the hill, the midge -cloud's 

 tingling hum which we left behind us as we entered the wood, 

 where 



" in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn," 



and the "blind" bat hovers yet, or the quawking chorus of the 

 night-herons far down the misty river- bend, or the pumping of 

 the bittern in the fen beyond, or it may be far beneath the valley 

 fog for many have heard the "stake-driver" but few shall locate 

 the stake! Only once have I identified this strange nocturnal 

 voice to be positively sure of it, and this, as it occasionally came 

 across the placid midnight waters of Lake Winipiseogee, alter- 

 nating or accompanied with the "loon's wild whinny" from the 

 distant shore, the while I floated alone in my boat as though 

 poised in equilibrium between two limitless starlit skies, one above 

 and one below, without a visible vestige of land save the great 

 black rim of the distant shore to give prosaic source to the weird 

 nocturnal duo. 



I have said that the midnight forest is comparatively silent ; 

 but the stillest woods may be made to divulge strange secrets 

 not vouchsafed to the ordinary night listener. In a recent ro- 

 mance by Mr. W. H. H. Murray, in which he touches incident- 

 ally upon woodcraft and the acute ear-sense of the Indian, I 

 find the following note : 



I have often been surprised at the many and strange sounds which may at 

 times be heard by putting my ear flat to the sod or to the bark of trees. Even 

 the sides of rocks are not dumb, but often resonant with noises of running waters, 

 probably deep within. It would seem that every formation of matter had in some 

 degree the characteristics of a whispering gallery, and that, were our ears only 

 acute enough, we might hear all the sounds moving in the world. 



