148 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
which may not prove entirely without interest to 
fanciers who aim at something beyond a mere 
increase in our food-supply in their selecting and 
refining processes. 
To continue my narration. I woke in the morn- 
ing at my usual time, between three and four 
o'clock, which is not my getting-up time, for, as a 
rule, after half an hour or so I sleep again. The 
waking is not voluntary as far as I know ; for 
although it may seem a contradiction in terms to 
speak of coming at will out of a state of uncon- 
sciousness, we do, in cases innumerable, wake 
voluntarily, or at the desired time, not perhaps 
being altogether unconscious when sleeping. If, 
however, this early waking were voluntary, I 
should probably say that it was for the pleasure of 
listening to the crowing of the cocks at that silent 
hour when the night, so near its end, is darkest, 
and the mysterious tide of life, prescient of coming 
dawn, has already turned, and is sending the red 
current more and more swiftly through the 
sleeper's veins. I have spent many a night in the 
desert, and when waking on the wide silent grassy 
plain, the first whiteness in the eastern sky, and 
the fluting call of the tinamou, and the perfume 
of the wild evening primrose, have seemed to me 
like a resurrection in which I had a part; and 
something of this feeling is always associated in 
