The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-10-25
AN OCTOBER NIGHT.

Perhaps nothing tends to put na-
 ture student in touch with Nature
 more quickly than nights spent in the
 woods. After the sun goes down, the
 human element is gradually reduced
 to a minimum; gun shots cease,
 voices die away and the sportsmen re-
 turn to their camps for the night.
 Then from the shadows creep forth
 shy creatures which seldom see the
 light of day; creatures which are
 never at their ease save under the
 sheltering cover of g darkness With
 reasonable care and patience one is
 almost sure to see something interest
 ing if he spends a night in the woods
 He may not see any animal life at all,
 but the chances are that he will and
 in any case he will feel himself more
 of woodsman than if he had stayed
 at home.
 One evening last week set out be-
 fore dusk to see what some of my wild
 neighbors were doing. I was we'll
 wrapped up, for although the air was
 simply sharp knew it might be per-
 ishing cold before morning, and sit-
 ting still by the hour on a night in
 late October, is not very warm work
 under any circumstances.
 The sun had set, but it was still
 quite light in the west, when I reach
 ed lake, fringed by now almost leaf
 less trees, through the netted branch
 es of which could be seen the flaming colors of the afterglow. AS I looked, a wild duck, on hurrying wings, sped southward above the tree tops. dark and lowly figure, recalling Bryant's
 verses, "To a Waterfowl"
 i Whither, midst falling dew,
 While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
 Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
 Thy solitary way?
 The light had scarcely gone before the moon arose, silvering the frosted
 grass blades and throwing long shad- ows across the water. I wandered along the shore to a little cove where the water was shallow and where regiment of tall bulrushes stood
 guard over half finished muskrat- house, the building of which I had
 doubtless interrupted. I passed by,
 but when at a little distance I sat
 down in the shadow of a great tree trunk to wait for the builders to re- turn. Nor had I long to wait, for soon the rippling lines which always mark the wake of a swimming muskrat, were seen crossing the path of the moon, and in less than a minute I counted five dark heads moving in the glitter ing water at the feet of the bulrushes. The furclad workren did not have far to go for their building material either. No long trips such as they often make to gather sticks and moss and grass along the shore; they were | using instead the stems and roots of the bulrushes, which they pulled out of the mud and cut up with their teeth Just how they uprooted the plants there was not light enough to see, but every now and then a little dark figure would chamber up the sides of the partly built house, and busy himself with something before sliding 1 back into the water again.
 | So interesting was the work going
 on before me that I did not notice a rat. swimming directly towards me 1 from another part of the lake, until he was close to the bank. Almost the 1 moment I saw him he dived, and his l tail alone arose for an instant above the surface. He had gone to his bur-
 row, which was in the bank immedi- ately beneath where I sat The en- 1 trance, of course, was under the water, and when he reached it there was a low, hollow sound as he entered the tunnel. I waited for some time but he did not return. How still it was; so different from a night in August or even September. Then the air was vii brating with insect voices, and frogs | crooked along the margin of the lake | Tonight, the plaintive chirp of a soli- tary cricket somewhere among the pebbles at my feet, seemed loud enough to frighten the muskrats away. Now and then, the twittering notes of | migratory birds came down as from the stars, and once I heard the delib- | crate, measured "quock-quock-