TREE BIRDS 



ichneumon fly laid eggs beside her own, whose grubs 

 alone will benefit by her labours. 



MOTHS 



HAWK-MOTHS in a room stir alarm in female breasts as 

 surely as the advent of a bat. They are the 

 Uncanny largest and handsomest of our moths, but 

 Moths have uncanny features. The beautiful 

 death's-head is regarded with superstitious 

 awe from its skull-like marking and its unique power 

 of uttering a squeak. The humming-bird hawk-moth 

 may not be recognized for a moth as it drifts into a 

 room, the curious tufts of hair fringing the body sug- 

 gesting a bird's spread tail, the wings beating so rapidly 

 as to invest the form with a sort of halo, and making a 

 droning noise. The bee-hawks resemble bees, and no 

 doubt gain by being dreaded in consequence. 



TREE BIRDS 



AN engaging picture is made by a family of young 

 green woodpeckers, as they emerge from 

 The the nest-hole; four are seen, perhaps, 



Yaffle's clinging anxiously to the tree-trunk, stumpy 

 Family tails pressed close to the bark, while a 

 fifth surveys the green world from the 

 hole's entrance. Their first costume is of true feathers, 

 speckled in effect. In a silent wood the cry of the wary 

 head of the family rings out, loud and exultant, as the 

 youngsters leave the nest, a cry sometimes compared to 

 a shout of demoniacal laughter. 



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