The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-09-12
From the Spectator


1t Is difficult to imagine a. spot with less
domestic features to adorn the home than
piece of the bare ceiling of a tropical We
randa; but the attachment of animals to
their chosen sleeping place must rest on
some preference quite clear to their own
consciousness, though not evident to Us
In some instances the ground of choice is
ineligible Many of the small blue Brit
ish butterflies have grayish spotted backs
10 their wings. AT night they fly regularly
to sheltered corners on the chalk downs
where they live. alight head downward on
the tops of the grasses which there flour
lsh, and closing and lowering their wings
as far as possible, look exactly like a seed
head on the grass. The habits of birds
an regard to sleep are very unlike, some
peing extremely solicitous to be in bed in
good time, while Others are awake and
about all night But among the former the
sleeping place is the true home, the domus
ct penetraIta. 1t has nothing necessarily
IN common with the nest, and birds. like
some other animals and many human
beings, often prefer complete isolation at
TINS time. They want bedroom to them
selves. Sparrows which appear to go 10
roost In companies, and sometimes do
so, after vast amount of talk and fuss.
do not rest cuddled up against one anoth
er, like starlings or chickens, but have pri-
vale holes and corners to sleep in. They
are found of sleeping in the sides of straw
ricks, but each sparrow has its own lit
tie hollow among the straws just as each
OF Hook of sleeping larks makes it's own
"cubicle' on the ground. A London SPAR
row for two years occupied a sleeping
home almost as bare Of furniture a : The
ceiling which the East Indian butterfly
frequented. 1t came every night in winter
to sleep on a narrow ledge under the
portico of house in Onslow square.
Above was the bare whiteWashed ton of
the portfco, there We're no cosy corners
and at eighteen inches from the sparrow
was the gas-lit portico lamp. There every
evening 1t slept, and guests leaving the
house seldom failed to look up and see
the little bird fast asleep in its enormous
white bedroom. Its regular return during
two winters is evidence that it regarded
this as its home; but why did it choose
this particular portico in place of a hun
dred others in the same square?
1t is far cry from South Kensington
to the southern cliffs but the same sense OF
home which brought the sparrow back
nightly to his London portico brings the
cormorants and the falcons to the same
spot in the same precpice year after year
in the Culver cliffs. There is a certain
vaulted niche, in which the peregrine fall
cons sleep winter and summer, in the
white wall of the precipice, and every
night at dusk the cormorants fly in to
sleep on their special shelves and pedes-
tails on another portion of the cliff They
come to these few square yards of perpen-
dicular chalk, 300 feet above the surge. as
constantly as the fishermen return to their
cottages at the Foreland. They regard this
sleeping place as their fixed and certain
home, where, safe from gun, cragsman.
or cliff fox, they can sleep till sunrise
sends them hungry to their business of
fishing But of all animal sleeping places.
caves and caverns are most remarkable
for ancient and distinguished habitation.
Like prehistoric man, the animals alike
of past ages and OF the present hour have
made caves their bedrooms, and that thew
regard these in the light of home is AL
most certain, for they return to die there.
Whether the last English rhinoceros slept
in the Derbyshire cave where his bones
were found can only be matter of coniec-
ture. But caves are the natural sleep
ing places of nearly all Nocturnal creatures.
which need by day protection from enc
mics and from the disturbing light. Hol-
low trees serve the smaller creatures. But
the great caves, especially those of ,he
tropical forest, whether on the Orinoco. or
in Central America, or the Indian Archi-
pelago or in prehistoric Kentucky, have
been the sleeping places of millions of
creatures from the remotest ages of the
earth There sleep the legions of the bats:
there are dragons and monsters of old
dreamed evil dreams after undigested sur
feits of marsupial prey or of prehistoric
fish from vanished seas: and there the
wolf, the bear, the panther, and the giant
snake stu sleep away the hours of day.