So It Is Not Worth While To Catch Them Just For The Purpose Of
Identification, For They Have Enough Enemies In The Field Without Man And
His Heartless Cabinets.
The collector is the most terrible parasite of
all.
Let them go on with a happy hum, while the tulip opens in the
sunshine.
THE TIME OF YEAR.
The Emperor moth came out on the 2nd of April, and suddenly filled the
cardboard box like the noonday phantom in the sunshine, so unexpected and
wonderful. His wings, which as he rests are spread open, stretched from
one side of the box to the other, hovering over his old home, a beautiful
grey tipped with pink, and peacock-eyed, ring within ring. He clung to
the piece of heather upon which the caterpillar was found seven months
before, and which he had fixed in the threads of his cocoon. The immense
dark green caterpillar banded with black and spotted with gold was found
on the 29th of August among the heather on the hill-side; the sun
burning, the air all alight with the fire of the beams, a day of
flame - as if the keen tips of the pine needles would take fire in the
glow. The caterpillar in its colour and size seemed almost tropical;
those who have not seen it would scarcely believe that a caterpillar
could be so magnificent; but indoors in the cardboard box he lost his
sun-burnished colour and half his glory. Immediately afterwards he spun
his cocoon, and there he stayed for seven long months, so that the moth
thus suddenly appearing, without any cracking or opening of the cocoon,
appeared to be created on the spot. At first, indeed, some thought it was
a moth that had entered by the window, there being no rent or place of
exit from the perfect case. Within, however, was the broken and blackened
skin of the caterpillar and the detached thorax: the cocoon is like the
baskets for taking fish at weirs, only the willows merely touch at the
tip, and through these he had crept out, and they closed behind him.
The pale purple heather bloom still lies in the bottom of the box. Never
again shall I see a day of such glory of light, of air burning with
light; the very ferns in the shade were bright with the glow, despite
their soft green. A sad hour it was to me, yet I could see all its
beauty; sad, too, to think it will never return. So the Emperor moth came
out on the 2nd of April, and the same day there was a yellow and a white
butterfly in the garden. There had come a gleam of sunshine after two
months of bitter north wind, and the insects took life immediately. Early
in the morning the greenfinches were screaming at each other in the
elm - they were in such a hurry to get out their song, they screamed; the
chaffinches were challenging, and the starlings fluttering their wings at
the high window, and all this excitement at one gleam of sun. A friend
asked me what bird it was that always finished up its song with a loud
call for 'ginger-beer' - whatever he sang he always said 'ginger-beer' at
the end of it; it is the chaffinch, and a very good rendering of the
notes. 'Quawk! Quoak!' the rooks as they went by were so contented
enjoying the sunshine, they took out the harsh 'c' or 'k' and substituted
the softer 'q' - 'quawk! quowk!' Another perched on a tree made a short
speech, perhaps he thought it was a song. Sea-gulls have curiously
rook-like habits in some respects, following the plough like them, and in
spring wheeling for hours round and round in the sky as the rooks do.
The blackbirds and thrushes that had been singing freely previously
suddenly ceased singing about December 15, and remained silent for a
month, and as suddenly began singing again about January 15. Where they
all came from I cannot think, there seemed such an increase in their
numbers; one wet morning in a small meadow there were forty-five feeding
in sight that could be easily counted. They say the thrushes dig up and
eat the roots of the arum, yet they are not root-eaters. Possibly it may
have a medicinal effect; the whole plant has very strong properties, and
is still much gathered, I suppose for the herbalists. The root is set
rather deep, quite a dig with a pocket knife sometimes; one would fancy
it was only those which had become accidentally exposed that are eaten by
the thrushes. I have never seen them do it, and some further testimony
would be acceptable. The old naturalists said the bear on awakening from
its winter sleep dug up and ate the roots of the arum in order to open
the tube of the intestine which had flattened together during
hibernation. The blackbirds are the thrushes' masters, and drive them
from any morsel they fancy. There is very little humanity among them: one
poor thrush had lost the joint of its leg, and in order to pick up
anything had to support itself with one wing like a crutch. This bird was
hunted from every spot he chose to alight on; no sooner did he enter the
garden than one of the stronger birds flew at him - 'so misery is trodden
on by many.' There was a drone-fly on a sunny wall on January 20, the
commonest of flies in summer, quite a wonder then; the same day a
house-sparrow was trying to sing, for they have a song as well as a
chirp; on January 22 a tit was sharpening his saw and the gnats were
jumping up and down in crowds - this up-and-down motion seems peculiar to
them and may-flies. Then the snowdrops flowered and a hive-bee came to
them; next the yellow crocus; bees came to these, too, and so eager were
they that one bee would visit the same flower five or six times before
finally going away.
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