TWILIGHT AND DAWN 137 
ence, into the dark wet hole he wailed his last, 
long, lingering adieux. 
Evening entertainments on Mutton bird islands 
vary but little from night to night. With waning 
daylight the Petrel fall begins, the birds pattering 
through the leathery tree-tops or falling with a 
rustle on to—rather than into—spreads of pea- 
green brake and beds of sedge. This living rain 
continues most heavily whilst twilight—the longer 
southern gloaming—still lingers over the dim sea. 
With deepening darkness it tends to abate, the 
rain as it were moderating and falling only in 
showers. The advent of full night is announced 
by a screaming “te,” “te,” “te,” high-pitched, 
shrill, and of brief duration, the calling birds of 
a species we could never discover dashing wildly 
about just above the tree-tops. Scarcely has it 
ceased when, distinct from the bubbling, seething, 
simmering roar of landed birds, fainter and far, 
and high, high overhead there can be heard a 
sough or sigh. In its beginning this vast distant 
suspiration is a little sibilant, but presently takes 
on a humming vibrant note, as though a steady 
stream of air were passing through tight-stretched 
cords. There is a moan as of wind through stiff 
bare boughs, a going in the branches. We stood 
expectant of dancing woods, bent boles lashed 
with the gale, grey blurr of ruffled stiff-necked 
tupari-tops, a racing sea. Our ears warned us 
