At Home with Wild Nature 



In fairly high latitudes, such as the most northern 

 corner of the Shetland Islands, it is light enough in clear 

 midsummer weather to read an ordinary book during 

 every hour of the twenty-four, and there bird silence is 

 complete at midnight, to be broken again about two 

 o'clock in the morning. The same kind of thing pre- 

 vails in the country round about Snae Hettan, the 

 highest mountain of the Dovre Feld range in Norway, 

 except perhaps for the loud calling of an occasional 

 common crane. 



Male and female house martins go to rest together in 

 the same nest, but it is difficult to understand when they 

 sleep, for they appear to carry on a low twittering con- 

 versation all night long. Rooks and jackdaws do a 

 great deal of talking when they ought to be asleep, 

 especially if disturbed by the sound of human or other 

 footsteps near their roosting quarters. 



Although the dunnock is essentially a daytime 

 singer, he may occasionally be heard pouring forth his 

 appreciation of hedgerow life in his own inimitably 

 cheerful way, even at midnight. I once heard a 

 wheatear pipe his meagre lay on a boulder-strewn fell- 

 side at eleven o'clock at night. I think he mistook the 

 light of a rising moon for the break of day. 



The peewit or lapwing cheers the benighted traveller 

 on his way by his delightful love notes and the wuff 

 wuff of his wings as he turns and twists in the wonder- 

 ful aerial evolutions he indulges in every springtime. 



At the same season by night and by day the common 

 snipe is busy, especially in dull, warm weather, pro- 



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