Many of us look with longing to the days of Columbus; we chafe at the
thought of no more continents to discover; no unknown seas to encompass.
But at our very doors is an "undiscovered bourne," from which, while the
traveller invariably returns, yet he will have penetrated but slightly
into its mysteries. This unexplored region is night.
When the dusk settles down and the creatures of sunlight seek their rest,
a new realm of life awakens into being. The flaring colours and loud
bustle of the day fade and are lost, and in their place come soft, gray
tones and silence. The scarlet tanager seeks some hidden perch and soon
from the same tree slips a silent, ghostly owl; the ruby of the
hummingbird dies out as the gaudy flowers of day close their petals, and
the gray wraiths of sphinx moths appear and sip nectar from the spectral
moonflowers.
* * * * *
With feet shod with silence, let us creep near a dense tangle of
sweetbrier and woodbine late some summer evening and listen to the sounds
of the night-folk. How few there are that our ears can analyse! We huddle
close to the ground and shut our eyes. Then little by little we open them
and set our senses of sight and hearing at keenest pitch. Even so, how
handicapped are we compared to the wild creatures. A tiny voice becomes
audible, then dies away,--entering for a moment the narrow range of our
coarse hearing,--and finishing its message of invitation or challenge in
vibrations too fine for our ears.
* * * * *
Were we crouched by a dense yew hedge, bordering an English country lane,
a nightingale might delight us,--a melody of day, softened, adapted, to
the night. If the air about us was heavy with the scent of orange blossoms
of some covert in our own southland, the glorious harmony of a mockingbird
might surge through the gloom,--assuaging the ear as do the blossoms
another sense.
But sitting still in our own home tangle let us listen,--listen. Our eyes
have slipped the scales of our listless civilised life and pierce the
darkness with the acuteness of our primeval forefathers; our ears tingle
and strain.
A slender tongue of sound arises from the bush before us. Again and again
it comes, muffled but increasing in volume. A tiny ball of feathers is
perched in the centre of the tangle, with beak hidden in the deep, soft
plumage, but ever and anon the little body throbs and the song falls
gently on the silence of the night: "I beseech you! I beseech you! I
beseech you!" A Maryland yellow-throat is asleep and singing in its
dreams.
As we look and listen, a shadowless something hovers overhead, and,
looking upward, we see a gray screech owl silently hanging on beating
wings. His sharp ears have caught the muffled sound; his eyes search out
the tangle, but the yellow-throat is out of reach. The little hunter
drifts away into the blackness, the song ends and the sharp squeak of a
mouse startles us. We rise slowly from our cramped position and quietly
leave the mysteries of the night.
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