WOOD WARBLER'S SONG-FLUTTER 



is not to be supposed for a moment. Steal upon 

 the ringdove's haunt, and watch the lovers : it is 

 as certain that they kiss as it is that they fly. I 

 have seen kisses given and returned, kisses some- 

 times showered in on the neck or the cheek. This 

 is not humanizing the acts of birds. It is not 

 sentiment ; but a simple, well-observed fact in 

 natural history. 



Insect Taming 



A singular question is raised by a correspond- 

 ent who lately wrote to ask me whether the idea 

 that a butterfly will sometimes follow a man is 

 purely fanciful. He imagines that a butterfly 

 made itself his companion for fully a mile in the 

 Cotswolds the other day. Once, in America, a 

 butterfly went with him for miles along the railway 

 track between Lewistown and Niagara. I have 

 had no such experience with a butterfly. But in 

 late summer long after the nesting season I was 

 led a short distance along a lonely road by a gesti- 

 culating redstart, which seemed full of curiosity. 

 There is a bird of African forests which will lead 

 human beings to honeycombs. Gordon Gumming 

 was once led by this bird, not to a honeycomb, 

 but to a lion instead ! What motive a butterfly 

 could have in accompanying a human being one 

 can hardly imagine. Ordinarily, the attitude of 

 butterfly or day-flying moth towards man is wary 



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