December Peace 307 



barking at some distant alarm far beyond the range 

 of human ears. Many persons with good hearing 

 for ordinary purposes cannot hear the squeak of 

 the bat or the distant jarring of the fern-owl on a 

 summer night. Probably very few persons can 

 hear the stroke of a bat's wing ; and yet it must 

 make a noise. In the calm of the midwinter fields 

 we learn how partial and limited is our ordinary 

 appreciation of sound, and of what an incalculable 

 and complex murmur the, fabric of our own silence 

 must be woven. If the bark of a dog can make 

 so distant an impression on a dull ear, the mountains 

 must be filled with the din of far-off cities, and this 

 silent landscape be trembling to the murmur of 

 the sea. 



Nocturnal life seems especially suited to the dark 

 season of the year, when the sun is so nearly ban- 

 ished ; and it is certain that many birds of diurnal 

 species suffer greatly in hard weather from the 

 length of the winter nights. Many birds which are 

 most wakeful in winter are among the earliest 

 nesters in spring ; and this is probably due to the 

 preservation of their strength by the curtailment 

 of the long night fasts. Sparrows and other finches 

 are essentially birds of daylight ; they troop to 

 roost when robins and hedge-sparrows still flit 

 actively about the bushes, and their normal nesting 

 time is nearly a month later than that of thrushes 

 and blackbirds. In exceptionally hard seasons, 

 when the earth is long frozen and the berries are 

 exhausted, thrushes perish in great numbers ; but 

 in ordinary years and places they are the earliest 



