A powerful perfume rises from the ground-weeds, and stooping low, we detect dame's violet. The purple _Hesperis matronalis_ emits its sweet smell only at night, and is fertilised by moths. This, too, holds good of the evening campion (_Lychins vespertina_), only its scent is fainter. For this, however, the colour of its white petals amply compensates, as they are more easily seen in the darkness. Further on, we detect _Orchis bifolia_, which is also particularly sweet, and with the same object. All these emit fragrance at night, and are fertilised _only_ by night-flying insects. A crash! the underwood is rudely torn, and a form disappears in the darkness. The crackling of boughs and dead sticks mark on the stillness of night the poacher's sinuous path through the woods. Soon his old black bitch slinks by the hedge, clears the fence at a bound, and doggedly follows her master's footsteps. Crake answers crake from the meadows as they have done through the night. Now they are at our feet, now far out yonder. The night call of the partridge comes from the gorse, and the first pheasant crows from the larch branches. On the hill we wade through a herd of recumbent heifers, their sketchy forms sharply outlined in the darkness. These are quietly chewing the cud, and turn upon us their great soft eyes; some even press their dewy noses against us. The sweet breath of kine is wafted on the night, and the drone of many insects. It is wonderful how lightly the creatures of the fields and woods sleep. The faintest rustle brings chirping from the bushes, and in the densest darkness the wood pigeons coo. Jays screech in the glade, and the wood-owls hoot. One of the essentially night-singers is the grasshopper warbler. Shy and retiring in its habits, it is rarely found far distant from aquatic vegetation. Moist situations are most congenial, as among the plants that effect them it finds its winged food. Although generally effecting such spots as indicated, it sometimes seeks out considerable elevations. These are covered with coarse grass, bent, furze, and heather; and here, far into the night, it reels out its continuous cricket-like song. It returns to the same spot year after year, and although from these the particular notes may be often heard, the singer itself is nowhere to be seen. At the least noise it drops from the support on which it may be depending into the grass beneath, then is silent. The song is long continued, but the sounds are constantly shifting, marking the restless track of the singer on the night. It needs no stretch of imagination to detect in the notes of this species the similarity to the grasshopper, and the "monotonous whirr like the spinning of a fishing-reel," is fairly expressible of the bird's song. Perfect master of intricate maze and covert, it is never far from them. Even though it has ventured above his accustomed limits, its vigilance sends it back at the least noise,