276 



WILD SPAIN. 



variety of nocturnal sounds which, during the short twi- 

 light, suddenly awake into being, strikes strangely on a 

 northern ear. During the gloaming the air has been alive 

 with the darting forms of bats, terns, and pratincoles, of 

 swifts and swallows, all busily hawking after insects or 

 slow-flying beetles. But before dark these disappear. Of 

 crepuscular birds, the first to commence the nocturnal 

 concert is the Eusset-necked Nightjar, which abounds all 



SUMMER EVENING— OWLS AND MOTHS. 



over the scrub ; a few minutes later, from the cork-trees, 

 resounds the note of the Little Owl, then the sharp ring- 

 ing Jii-you of Scop's Owl — both in sight, flickering against 

 the darkening sky ; while far and near among the grass 

 the loud rattle of the mole-cricket starts like an alarum 

 and from every pool the united croaks of literally millions 

 of frogs form, as it were, a background of sound resem- 

 bling the distant roar of a mighty city. 



