THROUGH WILD EUROPE 269 



have of ever escaping from this watery labyrinth if 

 anything were to happen to my boatman. Our boat, 

 which was nothing but a canoe sharp at both ends, 

 had turned and twisted in a dozen different direc- 

 tions, through channels each one of which exactly 

 resembled the other, and through reeds which closed 

 up and had completely hidden any trace of a passage. 

 There was no dry land, nothing but water of varying 

 depths, reeds, water-plants, and floating islands 

 which tip up when you put a foot on one, or sink 

 bodily under your weight. At rare intervals, groups 

 of willow-trees stand up out of the sea of reeds. In 

 one of these we found the beautiful swinging nest 

 of a Penduline Tit, but it was not quite finished, the 

 spout being still wanting. 



We spent a couple of days in this neighbourhood, 

 and I photographed a family of White Storks on a 

 hay-stack close to our lodgings. The orchards in 

 the village were much infested with the huge larvae 

 of Saturnia major. Very curious and beautiful 

 objects they were. One man gave me a hatful of 

 them, and I found some myself on the apricot-trees. 

 They were full-grown, so that I put them into some 

 small cardboard cartridge-boxes, feeling sure that 

 they would spin up inside, which they did. It would 

 have been impossible for me to have looked after 

 them and fed them while on this boat expedition, 

 always on the move. 



