Timeless Night 115 



rapidly to and fro through a space of four or six 

 inches, in ecstatic activity like the mayfly's above 

 the stream. Sometimes, but less often, the female 

 joins in this dance. She is larger than the male, 

 and her wings are of gold instead of silver. The 

 swifts are so intent that they can sometimes be 

 caught with the hand as they oscillate on their 

 chosen station. The intensity of the July nights 

 finds its expression in the dance of these silent 

 moths, just as the dusk of early June thrilled to 

 the song of the nightingale. The song-thrush still 

 sings after sunset on glowing nights, and the sedge- 

 warbler babbles like a fitful weir among the 

 watery vegetation. But the profusion both of 

 blossom and music is already diminishing in July ; 

 and the life still fervent in the night gains solemnity 

 from the gathering silence and the dispersed white 

 bloom. 



There is a personality in these gleams of the July 

 night which makes the spirit of nature at such a 

 time very close to the instincts of humanity. In 

 midwinter the whole landscape is merged in the 

 glory of the over-riding moon ; the abated life of the 

 earth lies inert in that comprehensive splendour. 

 In July the moon eclipses and disturbs much earthly 

 life ; the gleam of the blossoms is dimmed, and the 

 white moths shrink from its mastery. Our world 

 is most at home under the canopy of its own 

 nocturnal glows or the moist cloud shrouding the 

 stars. In the steady dusk each ghost moth has 

 his own station and his own ardours ; each disc of 

 elder blossom hanging on the hedge of the hayfield 



