LYNDHUKST 169 



a spot so disagreeable to me that I avoid it, and look 

 for nothing and wish for nothing to detain me in its 

 vicinity. 



Lyndhurst is objectionable to me not only because 

 it is a vulgar suburb, a transcript of Chiswick or 

 Plumstead in the New Forest where it is in a wrong 

 atmosphere, but also because it is the spot on which 

 London vomits out its annual crowd of collectors, 

 who fill its numerous and ever-increasing brand-new 

 red-brick lodging-houses, and who swarm through all 

 the adjacent woods and heaths, men, women, and 

 children (hateful little prigs!) with their vasculums, 

 beer and treacle pots, green and blue butterfly nets, 

 killing bottles, and all the detestable paraphernalia of 

 what they would probably call "Nature Study." 



It happened that one day, a mile or two from Lynd- 

 hurst, going along the road I caught sight of a pretty 

 bit of heath through an opening in the wood, and 

 turning into it I looked out a spot to rest in, and 

 was just about to cast myself down when I noticed 

 a small white spider, disturbed by my step, drop 

 from a cluster of bell-heath flowers to the ground. I 

 stood still, and presently the spider, recovered from 

 its alarm, drew itself up again by an invisible thread 

 and settled down on the bright - coloured blossoms. 

 Seating myself close by, I began to watch the strangely 

 shaped and coloured little creature. It was a Thomisus 

 a genus of spiders distinguished by the extraordinary 

 length of the two pairs of forelegs. The one before 



