THE FAERY YEAR 



the strange, fleshly-looking toothwort under the 

 larch trees one April ; bird's-nest orchids at the edge 

 of the beech hanger in summer several specimens 

 looking, ten yards off, exactly like burnt-up plants 

 of broom rape ; herb Paris on the bare ground 

 under the beech, that English upas tree to most 

 plant life ; with hosts of butterfly orchids among 

 the bracken and birches at the edge of the park. 

 One day during this summer I heard and saw a 

 greater black and white woodpecker, " French pie," 

 in a wood the bird census of which I fondly thought 

 I had taken long ago ; the shyest bird in quiet wild 

 woods that one can imagine : its discovery threw 

 light at once on the statement of the gamekeeper 

 that he had seen a " black yappingal." 



In half a dozen seasons we expect to see all the 

 species of butterflies in a district. But it took me 

 far longer to be sure that the comma butterfly was a 

 north Hampshire insect ; whilst only the other day 

 I found myself for the first time on the ground of 

 the pearl skipper, plentiful when it occurs, but 

 extremely local. This little butterfly might be easily 

 mistaken for the large skipper even whilst at rest 

 with its wings partly open. On the wing it must be 

 moving slower than its wont for even the ready 

 eye of an Aurelian to detect it. Now and then, 

 when this skipper makes a short, comparatively slow 

 journey from one dwarf thistle to another, one can 

 detect the singular little marks on the under sides of 

 all four wings, not unlike squares on a chess-board ; 

 but, as a rule, it is only when he is at rest, wings 

 198 



