THE MARSH WARBLER'S MUSIC 211 



yet tender melody. Until I heard it I could not have 

 believed that any feathered mocker could reproduce 

 that falling strain so perfectly. 



One of the greatest pleasures in life my life I mean 

 is to be present, in a sense invisible, in the midst of 

 the domestic circle of beings of a different order, 

 another world, than ours. Yet it is one which may be 

 had by any person who desires it. Some of the smaller 

 birds lend themselves easily to this innocent prying. 

 And one is more in sympathy with them than with the 

 smaller, more easily observed insects. The absolute 

 indifference of these to our presence only accentuates the 

 fact of their unlikeness to us in their senses and faculties. 

 There is a perpetual fascination in some social insects, 

 ants especially, but it disquiets as well as delights us 

 to mark their ways. They baffle our curiosity, and if 

 we be of animistic mind we become when watching 

 them uncomfortably conscious of a spirit, an entity, 

 in or behind nature that watches us and our watching 

 with an unfathomable look in its eyes and a challenging 

 and mocking smile on its lips. 



One of our most distinguished biologists, who has 

 written books on some lower forms of life which are 

 classics, has never included insects in his studies just 

 because he has never been able to free himself from a 

 sense of uncanniness they give him. In me, too, they 

 produce this feeling at times : these myriads of 

 creatures that float like motes in the sunbeam ; minute, 



