THE BROWNING OF THE LEAVES 245 



are all or nearly all of the Vanessidse, that is pea- 

 cock, red admiral, painted lady, large and small 

 tortoiseshell, and probably the Camberwell beauty, 

 and outside the Vanessidae the brimstone and the 

 comma. Strange that the sleep habit should 

 belong only to so well denned a group, for the 

 comma and the brimstone are so like the Vanessidae 

 that one or either is usually included by any one 

 bold enough to make an original classification. 

 I cannot help thinking that the fact that they 

 hibernate ought to weigh down the balance in 

 their favour, and secure them admission to the 

 noble class of the purple emperor. 



The quiet man will see just now at any time 

 of the day ghostly shapes at work in the hazel 

 thickets, in the midst of quickset hedges, in the 

 stackyards and in the corn stubbles. Sometimes 

 it is a bushy-tailed dormouse, sometimes a white- 

 vested wood mouse, but much more often a short- 

 tailed vole. They are easily known apart, mainly 

 from the characteristics just named. The dor- 

 mouse is the only one that has the tail clothed with 

 hair, and the tail of the vole is as though that of a 

 field mouse had been cut down by a good half. 

 Furthermore, the vole has a wide face with the 

 eyes set close together, after the manner of a 

 caricatured Boer farmer, while the mice have 

 large and brilliant eyes set at the outer angle of 

 the face, so that they can look well round at any 

 one who tries to steal up behind. The vole must 

 turn its head before it can anything like look over 



