32 THE ENTuMuLUUISt's KKOOKI). 



backwards and forwards across the path. Sometimes even the strongest 

 nerves must get a shock. The frightened wood-j^igeon clattering from 

 his roost is hard to bear witliout a start. A cow, frightened by the 

 light of the lantern and blowing across the hedge, seldom fails to thrill 

 the nerves. But I liave had Avorse surprises even than these. I had to 

 stand and wait while a badger came burrowing through the underwood 

 to look at my light. What a size he looked I Unsi)eakable ferocity 

 glared from his eyes. I must have sat down, resigned to the worst, if 

 he had not Hed. Again in the Forest, after my system had got well 

 drenched with mystery and ex2)ectant of anything, while wa:idering 

 through aisles and aisles of gigantic trunks, where the darkness shut me 

 in like a wall outside the rays of my lantern and massed itself like 

 storm-clouds, layer u2)on layer up among the towering branches, 1 have 

 shaken a bush to disturb the motlis, and with the moths have roused 

 from his woodland lair, — oh, horror ! — with a savage snort, the Forest- 

 ing. More frightened than I ? No, a tliousand times, no I And yet 

 once more. Wending my midnight way from Cral)lje Wood, and gazing 

 from the hill-top over the sleeping valley, with a half-moon low in tlic 

 west and streaks of light cloud far away in the south, have I not sto})i)ed 

 in sudden wonderment, to see, darting up from the horizon, in and out 

 among the clouds, up to the very zenith of the heavens, a pale and 

 restless ray of light? 1 could have endurc'd it l)c'tter had it remained 

 there, but it vanished and came again, slanting now to east and now 

 to west, and then executing a kind of dizzy dance in tlie lieavuns. I 

 suppose it was the search-light from an ironclad in the Solent, but it 

 took me many minutes of anxious thought ))efore 1 was far enough 

 recovered to proceed. 



Such, in brief, are some of the charms and fancies of a night- 

 wanderer. Pages Avould fail to tell of them all, and pages more might 

 be added to describe some of tlie discomforts and catastrophes. But 

 how far the ever-present charms outweigh the occasional troubles and 

 disappointments, is a question Avhich no true son of the night will care 

 to discuss. Good Night 1 Yes. Better than day, even as expectation 

 is better than certainty. Good Night ! Who would live by «lay, were 

 it not for the day's Avork that must be done in the day. Good Night. 



With special reference to its correlated variations in Plumage, 

 Moulting and Hybernation. 



By T. A. CHAPMAN, M. D. 



(Continued from page I'i). 



It may shorten the description of the further results observed, if 1 

 say at once that the subsequent broods I reared diifered from the first 

 by showing an increase in the number of Laggards and much A'ariety as 

 t(3 habit and plumage of the Nornuds ; they also presented very varied 

 forms, intermediate both betAveen Forwards and Normals and IjctAveen 

 Normals and Laggards, and this nniltiplication of forms was, on the whole, 

 more marked in eacli successive l)rood. So much was this the case, 

 that though 1 began to arrange in a tabular form the different varieties 

 that occurred, and had reached about fifteen headings ; yet after raising 

 another brood or tAvo, I found that each of these headings Avould have 



