kinds of insect life, due doubtless to the wind.
Out of a dozen butterfly chrysalids collected, six
were worthless; they were stiff, and when opened were
stuffed full of small white larvae, which had eaten
away the coming butterfly in its shell. They were
the offspring of a parasite insect, which thus provided
for the sustenance of its young by eating up other
young, after the cruel way of nature. Why does
one robin carefully choose a thatched cave for its
nest, out of reach except by a ladder, and safe from
all beasts of prey, and another place its nest on a
low grassy bank scarcely hidden by a plant of wild
parsley, and easily taken by the smallest boy?
At first it looks like a great difference in intelligence,
but probably each bird acted as well as could be under
the circumstances. Each robin has to fight for
his locality, and he has to make the best of his territory;
if he trespassed on another bird’s premises
he would be driven away. You must build your house
where you happen to possess a plot of land. It
is curious to see the male bird feeding the female,
not only while on the nest, but when she comes away
from it; the female perches on a branch and utters
a little call, and the male brings her food.
He was feeding her the other evening on the bare boughs
of a fig tree some distance from the nest. The
warmth of the sun, although we could not feel it,
must have penetrated into the earth some time since,
for a slowworm came forth on a mound for the first
time on April 16. He coiled up on the eastern
side every morning for some hours, but was never seen
in the afternoon. His short, thick body and unfinished
tail, more like a punch or the neck of a stumpy bottle,
was turned in a loop, the head nearly touching the
tail, like a pair of sugar-tongs. Coming out
from the stitchwort and grasses, the spiders often
ran over his shining dark brown surface, something
the colour of glazed earthenware. A snake or
an adder would have begun to move away the moment
any one stopped to look at it; but the slowworm takes
no notice, and hence it is often said to be blind.
He seems to dislike any sharp noise, and is really
fully aware of your presence. Close by the mound,
which stands in a corner of the garden, there is a
great bunch of blue comfrey, to which the bees and
humble-bees come in such numbers as to seem to justify
the idea that these insects prefer blue. Or perhaps
the blue flowers secrete sweeter honey. Every
kind of wild bee as yet flying visits this plant,
tiny bees barely a quarter of an inch long, others
as big as two filberts, some a deep amber, some striped
like wasps. A little of Chaucer’s May has
come; now and then a short hour or two of sunshine
between the finger and thumb of the north wind.
Most pleasant it is to see the eave swallow dive down
from the roof and rush over the scarcely green garden—a
household sign of summer. In the lane if you gather
them the young leaves of the sycamore have a fragrant
scent like a flower, and low down ferns are unrolling.
On the low wall sits a yellow-hammer, just brightly
touched afresh with colour. Happy greenfinches
go by, and it is curious to note how the instant they
enter the hedge they are lost now under the leaves;
so few days ago they would have been unconcealed.
So near is it to summer that the first thrush begins
to sing at three o’clock in the morning.
