WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 165 



presence drop it, and rush back in a nutter. Other 

 birds will do the same thing, from which it would 

 seem that the old saying that the eye sees what it 

 comes to see is as applicable to them as to human 

 beings. Their eyes, ever on the watch for food, in- 

 stantly detect a tiny creeping thing several yards 

 distant, though concealed by grass ; but the com- 

 paratively immense bulk of a man appears to escape 

 notice till they fly almost up against it. 



I fancy that the hive bee and some kindred insects 

 have a special faculty of seeing colour at a distance, 

 and that colours attract them. It can hardly be scent, 

 because when flowers are placed in a room and the 

 window left open, the wind generally blows strongly 

 into the apartment, and odours will not travel against 

 a breeze. It seems natural that in both cases the 

 continual watch for certain things should enable bird 

 and insect to observe the faintest indication. Slugs, 

 caterpillars, and such creatures, too, in moving among 

 the grass, cause a slight agitation of the grass-blades ; 

 they lift up a leaf by crawling under it, or depress it 

 with their weight by getting on it. This may enable 

 the bird to detect their presence, even when quite 

 hidden by the herbage, experience having taught it 

 that when grass is moved by the wind broad patches 

 sway simultaneously, but when an insect or caterpillar 

 is the agent only a single leaf or blade is stirred. 



At the farmhouse here, robins, wrens, and tomtits 

 are always hanging about the courtyard, especially 

 close to the dairy, where one or other may be con- 



