180 THE PAETRIDGE 



came autumn, when fruit and seed were every- 

 where strewn in the grass, and when " cater- 

 pillars innumerable " climbed down from bush 

 and tree and sought their winter quarters to 

 prepare slowly for the perfect life of spring. 



For many kinds of insects, the year is made up 

 of only two seasons, the one, a brief summer of 

 rapid growth and momentous change, and the 

 other a long winter of continuous sleep. Their 

 summer consists of the three warm months ; 

 their winter stretches from August to May. 

 But among the less fragile forms of life which 

 are able to endure the sHght frosts of late spring 

 and early autumn, hibernation is postponed till 

 after the fall of the leaf, and it lasts only 

 till the buds again burst open on the boughs. 



Long before the great autumn change, when 

 myriads of familiar creatures seemed suddenly 

 to vanish from their accustomed haunts, came 

 corn harvest, with a swifter and more bewilder- 

 ing alteration in the aspect of the countryside 

 than that occasioned previously by the mowing 

 of the hay. While Twm with his assistant- 

 reapers worked in the cornfields of the valley 

 farm, the partridges there were not exposed to 

 such peril as in the meadows when the mowing 

 machine, in irregular, narrowing spirals, moved 

 along the edge of the waving grass ; for the 

 methods of corn harvest adopted by Twm and 



