THE MAKERS OF SUMMER. 223 



carried on as at the edge of that seaweed ; they moved 

 a bushel of it. To the eye there seemed nothing in it 

 but here and there a small white worm ; but they found 

 plenty, and the weather being so bitter, I let them do 

 much as they liked ; I would rather feed than starve 

 them. 



Down at the sea-shore in the sunny hours, out from 

 the woodwork of the groynes or bulwarks, there came a 

 white spotted spider, which must in some way have 

 known the height to which the tide came at that season, 

 because he was far below high-water mark. The moles 

 in an upland field had made in the summer a perfect 

 network of runs. Out of curiosity we opened some, 

 and found in them large brown pupa;. In the summer- 

 house, under the wooden eaves, if you look, you will find 

 the chrysalis of a butterfly, curiously slung aslant. 

 Coming down Galley Hill, near Hastings, one day, a 

 party was almost stopped by finding they could only 

 walk on thousands of caterpillars, dark with bright 

 yellow bands, which had sprung out of the grass. The 

 great nettles now, nothing is so common as a nettle 

 are sometimes festooned with a dark caterpillar, hun- 

 dreds upon each plant, hanging like bunches of currants 

 Could you find a spot the size of your watch-seal 

 without an insect or the germ of one ? 



The agriculturists in some southern counties give 

 the boys in spring threepence a dozen for the heads of 

 young birds killed in the nest. The heads are torn off, 

 to be produced, like the wolves' of old times, as evidence 

 of extinction. This apart from the cruelty of the 

 practice is, I think, a mistake, for, besides the insects 

 that injure crops, there are some which may be suspected 

 of being inimical to human life, if not directly, indirectly ; 

 and if it were not for birds, we should run a very good 



