Dark Nights. 383 
touching it with their backs. They seem partly 
torpid. In open winters, such as we have had of 
recent years, the hedge fruit remains comparatively 
untouched by birds : from which it would appear that 
it is not altogether a favourite food. 
The country folk, who are much about at night 
and naturally pay great heed to the weather, are per- 
suaded that on rainy nights more shooting stars are 
seen than when it is bright and clear. The kind of 
weather they mean is when scudding clouds with 
frequent breaks pass over, now obscuring and now 
leaving part of the sky visible, and with occasional 
showers. These shooting stars, they say, are but 
just above the clouds, and are mete streaks of light : 
by which they mean to convey that they have no ap- 
parent nucleus and are different from the great meteors 
which are sometimes seen. 
I have myself been often much interested in the 
remarkable difference of the degree of darkness when 
there has been no moon. There are nights when, 
although the sky be clear of visible cloud and the 
stars are shining, it is, in familiar phrase, ‘as black as 
pitch’ The sky itself is black between the stars, and 
they do not seem to give the slightest illumination. 
On the other hand, there are nights without a moon 
when it is (though winter time) quite light. Hedges 
and trees are plainly visible ; the road is light, and 
anything approaching can be seen at some distance, 
and this occasionally happens though the sky be 
