NATURE NOTES. 
150 
Jebusite upon his house-top, rouses himself occasionally to hurl 
an encouraging grunt at the horse to keep it awake and going. 
Opposite the cheerful lights of the half-way house — where the 
carts accumulate in a crowd, whilst man and beast, but prin- 
cipally man, are being refreshed — is another human being not 
quite po innocuous, who stands on guard there either with the 
idea of keeping the peace, which is unnecessary, or on the 
chance of being invited inside to quench his thirst, which is 
unlikely ; he inflicts a discourteous stare on the wanderer, who 
quails not, having visible means of subsistence in his pocket. 
All this time that little drunkard the nightingale has been 
pouring out snatches of one song after another, tipsily and 
irresponsibly changing according to his passing mood from 
grave to gay, from a rollicking Bacchanalian chuckle in praise 
of the jug to a long drawn whine, the pianissimo commencement 
of which has a strong ventriloquial effect. For a few moments 
the gaiety of a single lark turns night into day, and a cuckoo 
afflicted with insomnia complains in the valley. Disturbed in 
their privacy amongst the reed-beds the mallards flock together 
with a whirr of wings and an outcry which extorts a sympathetic 
echo from the moor-hen ; they are given to alarms and excursions 
at this time of the year, when their wives have just given 
hostages to fortune to the extent of nine or ten ducklings apiece. 
Close to the high road a cricket appears to be making a dis- 
proportionate clatter, but the sound, when followed up into the 
wilderness of heather and pond and bramble, continually recedes 
like a disembodied and restless sewing-machine, till at length, 
some hundred yards away, it resolves itself into a grasshopper 
warbler. Now crescendo, now diminuendo, the interminable reel 
goes on with just a moment’s breathing-space once a minute, an 
instance of wonderful lung-power produced by cultivation and 
the influences of heredity. The bird’s loquacity is, if anything, 
more pronounced at night, when he seems to be stimulated by 
the curtain of darkness and the presence of the invader, whom 
he will allow to come within a yard, to exhibit himself, half in 
mockery, half in sociability to the very best advantage ; but let 
the stimulus go, and he will stop for some minutes, palpably 
disappointed. 
After two o’clock the bibulous efforts of the nightingale 
begin to slacken, the moon sinks, and the pilgrim is left alone 
in what now becomes “ the tragic melancholy night,” with 
the snoring frogs and the diving rats. But not for long. An 
hour later the blessed cock crows, and soon a weak and 
doubtful light shows itself over Lack's hill an hour and a-half 
before the sun is allowed to rise by the almanacks. But that 
master of the ceremonies, the thrush, with an excusable 
ignorance of Whitaker, chooses the present moment for attack- 
ing his fantasia, eliciting thereby a drowsy remonstrance from 
the tawny owl, who all the night long has preserved an inex- 
plicable silence. 
Presently the woods stand revealed in the silvery twilight. 
