80 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



yards; then he turned and commenced flying back- 

 wards and forwards, travelling forty or fifty yards one 

 way and as many the other, until he made a discovery ; 

 and struck motionless in his career, he remained sus- 

 pended for a moment or two, then flew swiftly and 

 straight as a bullet back to the hedge from which he 

 had so recently got away. He struck the hedge where 

 it was broadest, at a distance of about twenty yards or 

 more from the point where I had first found him, and 

 running to the spot, I saw that he had actually alighted 

 within four or five inches of a female concealed among 

 the clustering leaves. On his approaching her she 

 coyly moved from him, climbing up and down and 

 along the branchlets, but for some time he continued 

 very near her. So far he had followed on her track, or 

 by the same branches and twigs over which she had 

 passed, but on her getting a little farther away and 

 doubling back, he attempted to reach her by a series 

 of short cuts, over the little bridges formed by in- 

 numerable slender branches, and his short cuts in most 

 cases brought him against some obstruction; or else 

 there was a sudden bend in the branch, and he was 

 taken farther away. When he had a chain of bridges 

 or turnings, he seemed fated to take the wrong one, and 

 in spite of all his desperate striving to get nearer, he 

 only increased the distance between them. The level 

 sun shone into the huge tangle of bramble, briar, and 

 thorn, with its hundreds of interlacing branches and 

 stringy stems, so that I was able to keep both beetles in 



