THE CHANGING YEAR 177 



where the great silence was broken only by the 

 voice of the turbid brook. 



Nests of brown and black and yellow ants were 

 numerous in the rough pastures and untrimmed 

 hedges near the farmstead ; and of the many 

 trifling delicacies in the partridges' bill of fare 

 none was more highly prized than were the larvse 

 and pupse found in the chambers hollowed out by 

 the industrious insects to form their underground 

 abodes. As spring advanced toward summer, 

 and when most of the " neuter " population in 

 each mound had hatched out, the small pupal 

 forms from which they had emerged gave place 

 to the much larger grubs intended for develop- 

 ment into " perfect " males and females. These 

 larger " ant-eggs," as the country people ignor- 

 antly called them, were for the partridges a 

 tasty, rich, sustaining food; they represented 

 the very essence of the soil and the air, first 

 absorbed through the life of a plant by Nature's 

 alchemy, and then transformed into the bodies 

 of insects. 



The lives that had their being in those cham- 

 bered mounds at the roots of the grass were, 

 perhaps, even more wonderful than were the 

 lives of the feathered pillagers. After years of 

 ceaseless observation in field and wood and by 

 the riverside, I can suggest no more entrancing 

 occupation for a lover of Nature than the study 



