They Have Their
Fancies, Likes And Dislikes, And Caprices.
There are circumstances - perhaps
far back in the life-history of their race - of which we know nothing, but
which may influence their conduct unconsciously still, just as the
crusades have transmitted a mark to our minds to-day.
Even though an
explanation may satisfy us, it is by no means certain that it is the true
one, for they may look at matters in an entirely different manner from
what we do. The effect of the cuckoo's course is to cause an immense
destruction of insects, and it is really one of the most valuable as well
as the most welcome of all our birds.
The thin pipe of the gnat heard at night is often alluded to, half in
jest, by our older novelists. It is now, I think, dying out a good deal,
and local where it stays. It occurred to me, on seeing some such allusion
the other day, that it was six years since I had heard a gnat in a
bedroom - never since we left a neighbourhood where there had once been
marshy ground. Gnats are, however, less common generally - exclusive, of
course, of those places where there is much water. All things are local,
insects particularly so. On clay soils the flies in summer are most
trying; black flies swarm on the eyes and lips, and in the deep lanes
cannot be kept off without a green bough. It requires the utmost patience
to stay there to observe anything.
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