NOCTURNAL SOUNDS. 
359 
prove that they are very abundant. Even when seen 
by day, their agility in leaping renders it a difficult 
matter to lay hands on them. The sounds in ques- 
tion bear a strong resemblance to the objurgations of 
an inveterate snorer, but are much louder ; or some- 
times remind one of the groaning and working of a 
ship’s timbers in a heavy gale at sea. 
These are probably the voices of some of the 
greater Hyladae, But there are other and different 
noises still. While I am writing this note at Con- 
tent, — it is a lovely night in June, — all around 
I am saluted with strange sounds. Now and then 
comes the singularly harsh and cracked voice of the 
Gecko, like the notes of a child’s penny trumpet, 
or like a stick drawn across the teeth of a comb : — 
this I am familiar with. But I hear another voice, 
far more abundant, but quite unknown to me. It is 
now (about midnight) coming up from every part of 
the moonlitforest below me, with incessant pertinacity. 
It is a clear shrill note, so like the voice of a bird, 
and in particular so like that of the Solitaire, that it 
might easily be mistaken for it, but for tbe inappro- 
priate hour, and the locality. Like that, it is beau- 
tifully trilled or shaken, and, like it, the individual 
voices are not in the same key. As I now listen to 
the mingling sounds, I distinguish two particularly 
prominent, which seem to answer each other in 
quick but regular alternation ; and between their 
notes there is the difference of exactly a musical 
tone. I have little doubt that this is the sexual call 
of some Tree-frog. The groanings and snorings, 
which are sometimes so incessant, I do not now hear, 
