Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1890-06-12
NOISES OF THE NIGHT.
Calls and Cries Which Bespeak Animated
Nocturnal Life.

Nocturnal Life.
There is always something abroad
some creature of the fields and woods
which by its voice or movements is be-
trayed. Just as in an old rambling
house there are always strange noises
that can not be accounted for, so in the
bye-paths of nature there are innumera-
BILE sounds which can never be local
lied. TO those, however, who pursue
night vacations in the country-game-
keepers, poachers and others-there are
always calls and cries which bespeak
life as animate under the night as that
of the day. This is attributable to va
rious animals and birds, to night-fying
insects, and even to fish. Let us track
some of these sounds to their source.
"When comes still evening on, and twi-
light gray hath in her sober liv'ry all
things clad"-then it is that the
white owl comes abroad. Passing the
remains of an old baronial hall, its
piercing screech comes from the dis
mantled tower. Here the owls have
lived time out of mind, and we have
seen and heard them, asleep and awake,
through every hour of the day and night
1t is unnatural history to assert-as Mr..
Grey asserts-that the barn owls ever
NOPE, or mourn, or are melancholy
Neither are they grave monks, nor an
chorites, nor pillared saints A boding
bird or a dolorousl Nonsense; they are
none of these They issue forth as very
devils, and, like another spirit of the
night, sail about seeking whom they
may devour. The barn owl is the
''screech" owl of the bird literature; the
brown owl the true hooting owl. This
species is found in old and heavily-tim-
bered districts, and it particularly loves
the dark and somber gloom of resinous
pine woods. But the barn owl is
only the precursor of new life
life as animate under the night
as that of - the birds and
butterflies under the day. We follow
the path by the river, and on through
the meadows. Among the nut-bush tops
a bat is hawking for night-hying insects.
Great white moths get up from the
grass, and go looming away through the
darkness. A bend in the stream brings
us to a quiet river reach with brown
pebbles uand shallow. A sentinel
heron, that has been standing watchful
on one leg, rises and flaps languidly
away down the river reach. The con-
sumptive figure of the gaunt bird stands
by the stream through all weathers,
He knows not times nor seasons, and is
great poacher. In the wind, when he
takes his lone stand, his loose, futter-
ing feathers look like driftwood caught
in the bushes. He reminds one of
the consumptive! But, unlike him,
has wonderful powers of diges-
ton, and, withal, an immense
capacity for fish. Woe to the luckless
mort or trout that comes within reach
of his formidable pike, or the attack
ing peregrine that he attempts to i'm
/ pale on his bill. The heron is es-
sentially wanderer, and like Words
worth's immortal leech-gatherer, he
roams from pond to pond, from moor to
moor. Herons come and go by the
same routes; and night after night have
we flushed our fisher from the self-same
shallow. The peculiarly wild whistle
/ Of the curfew comes from out the night
sky, and swifts screech for an hour after
darkness has fallen. We are now by
the covet side, and strange "chur-
ring" sound comes from the glades; it
approaches nearer and nearer un-
til a loud tapping is heard in
the bushes. The object APP
proaches quite closely, and it is seer
that the noise is produced by a large
bird striking its wings together as they
meet behind. Even in the darkness it
may be detected that each wing is
crossed by definite white bar, The
bird is>the goatsucker or nightjar. Had
we it in our hand, we should see that il
was a connecting link between the owls
and the swallows, having the soft plum.
age and noiseless fight Of the one, and
the wide cape of the other. The object
of the noise it produces is probably ia
disturb from the bushes the large night
flying moths upon which it feeds
/ CCrnhill Magazine.