226 FIELD AND HEDGEROW 



peach and apricot, pink without a green leaf; the 

 pear tree white, but the leaves come quickly ; the apple, 

 an acre of pink and white, with the merest texture of 

 ^foliage. Nor are there many conspicuous green insects — 

 t W\¥\r*, '^^ grasshopper; some green flies ; the lace-fly, a green 

 "^"^ body and delicate white wings. With the wild flowers, 

 on the contrary, there seems to come a great deal of 

 green. There is scarcely a colour that cannot be 

 matched in the gay world of wings. Red, blue, and 

 yellow, and brown and purple — shaded and toned, 

 relieved with dots and curious markings ; in the butter- 

 flies, night tints in the pattern of the under wings, as 

 if these were shaded with the dusk of the evening, being 

 in shadow under the vane. Gold and orange, red, bright 

 scarlet, and ruby and bronze in the flies. Dark velvet, 

 brown velvet, greys, amber, and gold edgings like mili- 

 tary coats in the wild bees. If fifteen or twenty delicate 

 plates of the thinnest possible material, each tinted 

 differently, were placed one over the other, and all 

 translucent, perhaps they might produce something of 

 that singular shadow-painting seen on the wings of 

 moths. They are the shadows of the colours, and yet 

 they are equally distinct. The thin edges of the flies' 

 wings catch the sunbeams, and throw them aside. 

 Look, too, at the bees' limbs, which are sometimes 

 yellow, and sometimes orange-red with pollen. The 

 eyes, too, of many insects are coloured. They know 

 your shadow from that of a cloud. If a cloud comes 

 over, the instant the edge of the shadow reaches the 

 Grass moths they stop, so do some of the butterflies and 

 other insects, as the wild bees remain quiescent. As 

 the edge of your shadow falls on them they rise and fly, 

 so that to observe them closely it must not be allowed 

 to overlap them. 



