32 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE, 



midges above the boggy hollows, and the 

 banded hedge-snails were congregating in 

 numbers among the young pale-green foliage 

 of the hawthorn bushes. On the 7th, we had 

 a cloudless blue horizon and warm sunshine, 

 and I saw an orange-tip plimming its un- 

 expanded wings and displaying its beautiful 

 markings on a blade of grass beside the 

 brooklet. This evening, under a mackerel 

 sky, like July weather, I have just been 

 watching a motionless bunch of dry brown 

 leaves on the hedge bank. Suddenly one of 

 the leaves gets up, flutters about in the air a 

 bit, and then settles down again on another 

 brown cluster a few yards off. I creep 

 slowly up towards it, and examine the loco- 

 motive leaf as it stands. It is a little brown 

 butterfly, with folded wings, fresh from the 

 chrysalis ; and the lower or outer surface, 

 which alone is visible as it sits, seems dappled 

 over with wee light spots, much like the spots 

 of decay upon the leaves among which it 

 hides. I clap my hands briskly, and it gets 



