THE LINDEN-TREE OF LINNHULT 21 



fully stepping between the plants so as to injure none of 

 them, as I have seen a little London-bred boy do among 

 the ferns at Hampstead Heath. Perhaps Carl oftenest 

 wore those national thick shoes with heels, but cut off 

 low at heel, like slippers, which it is almost impossible 

 to wear out. In these he went out scampering and 

 chasing the butterflies across the broken ground where 

 the granite boulders are almost lost among the whortle- 

 berries, his keen eyes and swift feet following their 

 flight into the grey mystery of the fir woods until 

 tempted away by the discovery of a nest of game birds, 

 all full of dear little palpitating balls of fluff. 



His eyesight was from a child remarkably acute a 

 seemingly indispensable requisite to the naturalist, did we 

 not remember that Huber, Reboul, and Rumphius, among 

 the most eminent observers of nature, have been blind. 



Carl needed his keen bright eyes to trace the airy 

 path of the butterflies, for, as a rule, these are very 

 small in Sweden. 1 The brimstone butterfly, the only 

 large one I saw here, is one of the largest, at least 

 among the common ones. 



I have just caught, killed, and stuck a tiny fairy, 

 a blue butterfly, 2 smaller and more fragile than our 

 smallest chalk-hill blues. Did I call natural history 

 the science of peace ? Oh, monstrous fiction ! But 

 Linnaeus was as yet innocent of trying to compass 

 their death. He wanted to keep them alive, as most 



1 The family of the Lycainida being numerous!}* represented. 

 '-' One of the Lyca-nidcc. 



