46 



nest in which they are laid. This doctrine or law of imitation, 

 as it is called, is very attractive to students of natural history, 

 who occasionally push it to such a degree that they unknowingly 

 invent facts to square with their theories. For instance, the 

 editor of Science Gossip says, "the orange-tip butterfly lays its 

 eggs on yellow cruciferous plants, hence we see the benefit of 

 the deep reddish yellow tip to the wings to avoid detection, 

 &c." Now, as a fact, it is the male only which has this yellow 

 tip, and, of course, he lays no eggs, but the female, a small, 

 white butterfly, lays her eggs on the pale pink cuckoo flower or 

 cardamine pratensis, and, I believe, on no other plant ; in fact, 

 the butterfly is called Euchloe Cardamines in consequence. 



It is now the month of June, and as I know the lanes around 

 Newby and Eimington will be full of primroses, I wander forth 

 in that direction. At Duckpits the pure pendent blossoms of 

 the bird cherry, and the bright blue of the wild hyacinths make 

 gay the woodland shades. The common white butterflies are 

 fluttering in the fields, the leaves and also the beautiful waslike 

 flowers of the horse-chestnut, are nearly but not quite in full 

 blow, and very tender and beautiful they are to look upon. The 

 sparkling dewdrops fill the chalices of the wild rose ; the wood- 

 bine blossoms red and yellow on the hedge tops or climbs away 

 up the ash or the elder tree, out of the reach of rude pilfering 

 hands ; the large white convolvulus creeps along and festoons 

 the hedgerows, its elegant white flowers turning ever towards 

 the sun. A pair of late martins are busy gathering mud in the 

 lanes, wherewith to build their nests, but the starlings more 

 advanced are already feeding their young ; a little black moth 

 called the chimney-sweep is flying in plenty in the meadows, a 

 green-veined butterfly I am watching alights on a daisy, but it is 

 too small or too frail to carry him, and he overbalances and flies 

 away. A large black insect looking like a large bee, but in reality 

 the great Dor Beetle, describes a circling flight like a pigeon, and 

 alights and buries herself under a heap of cowsdung lying in the 

 lane, there doubtless intending to bore a perpendicular tunnel 

 twelve inches deep in which to lay an egg. 



This season is so far said to be the driest we have had for 

 thirty years, and although the primroses in this ditch at the foot 

 of Eimington Moor are very abundant, I notice that they are 

 much smaller and shorter in the stem than last year. In Shrop- 

 shire I have often counted fifty to sixty good long-stemmed 

 flowers on a single root ; and used to like nothing better than to 

 push my fingers in amongst the cool wet stems, for the sake of 

 the delicious perfume. There too I have found foxgloves and 

 teazles over eight feet high, being the tallest I have ever either 

 seen or read of ; seven feet being considered something remark- 

 able. 



