16 MOUNTAIN AND MOORLAND 



polite ceremony, and in singing competitions. There 

 is also a good deal of sparring between rival males, but 

 it does not seem to come to much. What strikes the 

 unprejudiced observer is the note of gaiety; so it is 

 strange to find that in many parts of the country the 

 Wheatear is regarded as a bird of ill omen, especially 

 if it says " t'schach, t'schach " when seated on a stone, 

 which is just what it usually does! The explanation 

 has been offered that the bird frequents lonely places, 

 cairns, burial mounds, and old churchyards. Perhaps 

 mis-educated people hear in the "chack, chack" the 

 sound of the mason carving their name on a tomb- 

 stone ! 



There was nothing for it now but a long pull up hill, 

 following a track among the heather, and as we wished 

 to get on before the day grew warm we did not stop 

 walking till a good hour had passed. Then, having 

 earned a rest, we stretched ourselves on a slope among 

 the heather and began Natural History again. We 

 saw that there was round about us quite a bustle a 

 silent bustle of small insects and spiders, not to speak 

 of small snails and slugs, besides centipedes and milli- 

 pedes; and we knew that for every creature we saw 

 there were a dozen that we missed, and a score that we 

 could not see. Dr. Shipley cut up some branches of 

 heather and put them in water in a centrifugal machine, 

 and then counted all the little creatures which the 

 forcible washing scoured off the twigs. They were 

 legion ; there is really a bustle among the heather. 



We saw, for instance, a mother-spider about the size 

 of a green pea, who carried about under her breast a 

 ball of silk. This is called her cocoon, but it is very 

 different from the cocoon of the butterfly or moth, such 



