CHAPTER VII.
NIGHT WANDERERS.
Although it is comparatively easy to observe the habits of animals by day, it is much more difficult to do so at night. Edward, as we have already said, was compelled by circumstances to work at shoemaking by day, and to work at Natural History by night.
“It would have been much easier work for me,” said Edward, in answer to an inquiry made as to his nocturnal observations, “had it been my good fortune to possess but a single trustworthy book on the subject, or even a single friend who could have told me anything about such matters. But I had neither book nor friend. I was in a far worse predicament than the young and intending communicants at the parish church of Boyndie were, who, when asked a question by the good and pious minister, and returning no answer, were told that they were shockingly in the dark—all in the dark together. Now, they had a light beside them, for they had their teacher in their midst. But I had no light whatever, and no instructor. It was doubly dark with me. It was decidedly the very blackness of darkness in my case. The only spark or glimmer I had was from within. It proceeded from the never-ceasing craving I had for more knowledge of the works of Nature. This was the only faintest twinkle I had to lighten up my path, even in the darkest night. And that little twinkle, together with my own never-flagging perseverance, like a good and earnest pilot, steered me steadily and unflinchingly onward.”
MIDNIGHT ROAMERS.
Although Edward was frequently out in winter-time, especially in moonlight, his principal night-work occurred between spring and autumn. The stillest and quietest, and usually the darkest part of the night—unless when the moon was up—was from about an hour after sunset until about an hour before sunrise. Yet, during that sombre time, when not asleep, he seldom failed to hear the sounds or voices, near or at a distance, of midnight wanderers prowling about. In the course of a few years he learnt to know all the beasts and birds of the district frequented by him. He knew the former by their noises and gruntings, and the latter by the sound of their wings when flying. When a feathered wanderer flew by, he could tell its call-note at once, and often the family as well as the species to which it belonged. But although he contrived to make himself acquainted with the objects of many of these midnight cries and noises, others cost him a great deal of time and labour, as well as some dexterous manœuvring.
The sounds of the midnight roamers, as well as the appearance of the birds and animals, were invariably more numerous during the earlier part of the year. In the spring and early part of summer they were always the most lively. Towards the end of summer the sounds became fewer and less animated; and the animals themselves did not appear so frequently. Woods were the principal lodging-places of birds and animals. There were fewer in the fields; still fewer among the rocks or shingle by the sea-shore, except in winter; and in the hills, the fewest of all.
THE ROE-DEER AND HARE.
When he made his first night expeditions to the inland country, the hoarse-like bark of the Roe-deer, and the timid-like bleak-bleak of the Hare, puzzled him very much. He attributed these noises to other animals, before he was able by careful observation to attribute them to their true sources. Although the deer wanders about at all hours of the night, occasionally grunting or barking, it does not usually feed at that time. The hare, on the other hand, feeds even during the darkest nights, and in spring and the early part of summer it utters its low cry of bleak-bleak. This cry is very different from that which it utters when snared or half-shot. Its cry for help is then most soul-pitying: it is like the tremulous voice of an infant, even to the quivering of its little innocent lips.
While Edward found that the deer and the hare were among the animals that wandered about a good deal in the dark, he did not find that the Rabbit was a night-roamer, although he occasionally saw it moving about by moonlight. He often watched the rabbits going into their burrows at sunset; and he also observed them emerging from them a little before sunrise. But there was one thing about the rabbit that perplexed and puzzled him. It did not emit any cry, such as the hare does; but he often heard the rabbit tap-tap in a particular manner. How was this noise caused? He endeavoured to ascertain the cause by close observation.
THE RABBIT.