LITTLE BROWN BIRD 63 



bags. The yellow-headed humble-bee is absent, 

 whence we mathematically infer that she still sleeps 

 underground. 



By night, as well as by day, the sallow spreads its 

 feast. When the hum of bees has died away and the 

 butterflies have long since gone to their mysterious 

 bed chambers, the moths come, first single spies, but 

 in something approaching battalions as the dusk 

 deepens into a mild, overcast night, with only enough 

 wind to carry the scent of the honey into remote 

 corners of the wood. And while they feast, their 

 luminous eyes expressing their joy, when their forms 

 cannot be seen, silent and moth-like comes some 

 knowing bat, and makes a stupendous meal of their 

 sweet-stuffed bodies. 



But where is the food of the chiff-chaff? Is there 

 yet a caterpillar to be found in the whole wood ? If 

 a man had one small chiff-chaff in a cage (impossible 

 thought !) and had to find food for it, using nothing 

 but caterpillars he caught himself, where, with all his 

 brains and skill, could he make out his toll ? The 

 only trees in anything like new leaf are an occasional 

 wild gooseberry, a shrub practically unknown to the 

 chiff-chaff, and the elder, which has no caterpillars. 

 It is possible that the elder achieved this enviable 

 position by its habit of early leafage, whereby its 

 caterpillars also were early and were cleared off by 

 the proverbially early bird. 



Blundering human can find not a grub nor an egg 

 on all the twigs. Here are a pair of marsh-tits, tame 

 enough to be closely watched as they hunt. The 

 field-glass brings one of them, as it were, within a 

 yard. He is an elegant bird, with a light grey back, 



