THE FAERY YEAR 



tit seems as sharp as a needle. One might sweep a 

 long-tailed tit off the tip of a twig into a butterfly 

 net on a longish stick one would not set out with 

 much hope of catching a cole tit so. 



Ruse of a Brown Tail 



If no animal, wild or tame, can fear death 

 ignorant that there is such a thing the expression 

 " shamming death," applied to birds and insects, is 

 misleading. We should not say, then, that the 

 magpie moth, humming bird hawk moth, wryneck, 

 and brown tail moth sham death when they lie still 

 and like dead things in our hands. The magpie 

 and the brown tail moths will lie so when scared or 

 captured. A brown tail moth which I picked up 

 would not use its wings when I tossed it into the 

 air. It fell to the ground, exactly as it chanced to 

 fall it lay, indifferent whether it were on its back, 

 its wings, or abdomen. The sleepiest butterfly, 

 dropped to the ground, will move its legs, if ever 

 so little, to cling to something ; the brown tail's 

 legs never stirred. 



Many a caterpillar, interrupted in autumn travel, 

 will curl into a circle, the armadillo woodlouse will 

 roll into a pill, to lie absolutely still for a little while. 

 In what degree, if any, the ruse is the result of 

 some dim reasoning process in the practiser we 

 cannot know ; but whether the moth or bird be 

 pure automaton or not in this, the explanation of 

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