COUNTRY SOUNDS 107 
visible, a pair-of dabchicks, diving every minute or 
two, and uttering now and then the gentlest possible 
whit-whit which one would not have heard if the 
hush had not been almost inviolate. Now and 
again a silvery trout leaped high, suggesting Ex- 
calibur; but that was all—till suddenly a ring-dove 
gave voice, with its deep, rich coo-roo, wonderfully 
soothing and tender. (One must not allow agri- 
cultural interests to obtrude on such occasions. ) 
Not far off, some one, we know not why, had set fire 
to a giant ant-hill, which was flaming on the top 
and glowing deep red in its recesses. But from 
the conflagration, with its tens of thousands of 
victims, and from the mélée hurrying from the 
burning city there came no sound at all. It is not 
so much that the country is sparsely peopled with 
animals—a fallacious impression due to the “ crypto- 
zoic”’ habits of the great majority—it is simply 
that relatively few animals act rapidly on matter, 
for that is the cause of sounds like the wood- 
pecker’s hammering, or the snipe’s drumming; 
and that most of our animals have soft voices, or 
have not very much to say. 
Just as people vary considerably in acuteness of 
vision, so some hear many sounds which escape 
others. Thus a keen-eared correspondent tells me 
that he hears the stroke of a bat’s wing and the 
closing of its jaws on an insect, the munching of a 
caterpillar, and the rustle of an earthworm. 
In midsummer in the North of Scotland there is 
hardly any darkness at all—one can sometimes see 
