62 By Leafy Ways. 



Others of her race fly only by night. 



The death's-head hawk-moth, with its marvellous 

 decoration of skull and cross-bones, is seldom seen 

 unless reared from the great chrysalis which will 

 be turned up in numbers among the late potatoes. 

 Cats sometimes bring this moth into the house, 

 attracted, perhaps, by the faint sound which the 

 creature makes. 



Now the cricket and the grasshopper hold high revel. 



Beetles of many kinds are abroad. Some of them 

 leave the water and roam over the country until the 

 glimmer in the east warns them to drop once more 

 into the cool depths. Another beetle, the glow-worm, 

 lights her lamp under the hedgerow to guide her mate 

 a plain, brown-coated little fellow who, though he 

 has an advantage over his wife in possessing wings, 

 has no power of giving light. 



Now among the fallows sounds the shrill call of the 

 partridge. From the cool shadows of the elms along 

 the edge of the wood comes the pleasant murmur of 

 the ringdove. The curlews are out along the shore. 

 The dark forms of heron and wild duck drift across 

 the still glowing west. 



The nightjar leaves the stony, bracken-sheltered 

 corner in her solitary orchard where she has lain close 

 the livelong day, and sails in and out among the trees 

 humming all the while her strange and droning cry. 



In the long grass the corncrake, too, begins his 

 harsh and ceaseless call. 



