AN ARCADIAN CALENDAR 



that so vampire-like a creature should have been en- 

 dowed with so musical a name, an uncanny bird-animal 

 that sleeps upside down, can walk without feet, and 

 fly without feathers, and even see though blinded. 



NATURE has a law that if moths must need fly in Winter 

 their females shall be wingless, for their 

 A Minor greater safety, but the law now relaxes, and 

 Prophet one of the first to take advantage of this is 

 the small eggar. How it forces a way from 

 the compact, hard, seamless cocoon which the cater- 

 pillar fashioned is a matter of never-ending wonder. 

 Like the Amazonian hen sparrow-hawk, the female is 

 larger than her smart little brownish-hued male. She 

 is an arch deceiver, and, as she clings to the twig 

 whereon she has arranged her eggs, may easily be 

 passed over as a dry hawthorn-leaf. These moths also 

 are among the minor Spring prophets. 



WINTER'S passing may be first announced, and Spring's 



tocsin first sounded, by the laughing cry of 



The the green woodpecker. In records kept for 



Yaffle ten years the exultant note has been heard 



on three occasions on the first day of 



January. To-day it rings with as heartening a message 



as voice of mistle-thrush or great tit. That " Yaffa, 



yaffa, yaffle " note is known in London, or so near that 



the caller may pass for a Cockney. The bird certainly 



is a conservative in its love of home; and old-time 



writers tell of woodpeckers occupying the same hole 



for their nests twenty and thirty years in succession. 



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