S90 WANDERINGS AND PONDERINGS 



herself in colour 1 Mark that Botnbylius ! what words can 

 tell the wondrous powers of his flight ! poised on wing, pain- 

 fully murmuring, — a murmur never to be mistaken,— he seems 

 part and parcel of the air, too gross, indeed, to rise, yet too 

 ethereal to fall ; like the coffin of Mahommed, he is suspended 

 motionless betwixt the heavens and the earth : attempt to catch 

 him, and he is off at viewless speed ; in a minute he has 

 returned, and is again poised in air before me, near the place 

 from whence I frightened him : he now descends, and after a 

 most elaborate scrutiny, selects a spot on which to settle : 

 there he sits bolt lapright, his spotted wings still vibrating, 

 though not so rapidly, as in flight. 



Farther down the hill, the swallows and sand-martins are 

 entomologizing ; they sweep along the surface of the grass, 

 picking off the insects that have mounted in preparation for an 

 aerial wandering : each blade and each bent that bears a living 

 being is robbed of its load \ ever and anon a bird, more eager 

 than the rest, dips deep into the grass for some glittering crea- 

 ture that has caught his beaming eye, and is for a few seconds 

 wholly lost to sight. In the morning there was rain, and the 

 gauze-winged nations were beaten to the earth, and the swallows 

 gave up their labours as useless; but now the sky is cloudless, 

 the air warm and still, and the insects have again emerged 

 from their hiding-places •, and as they prepare to wander, the 

 hungry swallows, more hungry from their morning's fast, sweep 

 with untiring wing over the surface of the earth, and arrest the 

 progress of myriads at the very threshold of a happy flight. 



The Insect-Hunter is looking from Eaton Hill down upon 

 the valley of Leraster, and upon the course of Lug and the 

 course of Oney, and upon the town, and the Etnam-street, 

 and the old blue-roofed church, and the Priory, now, alas, the 

 parish poor-house. On the left rise the well-wooded and often- 

 hunted heights of Brierley; above Brierley, and stretching 

 boldly forward to an abrupt headland, is the black, bleak, and 

 barren West Hope; above and beyond West Hope is the beauti- 

 fully fir-clad Foxley ; and again, above and beyond Foxley, the 

 Black Mountain, in all its gloomy grandeur, bounds the view; 

 the superior and more distant height of Pen-y-Cader-Vawr, 

 near Talgarth, just peeping in one spot above the level back 

 of the vast mountain. Jutting out beyond the Black Moun- 

 tain, to the right, but of far inferior height, is the baronial 



