102 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



notion of precedence. Spring crocus opens the ball 

 and autumn crocus closes it, but instead of slowly 

 thawing to the social impulse one by one, the whole 

 concourse dances from the opening bar till the end. 



Shrillest crickets pierce the air with their clamour 

 It seems as though nothing smaller than a bird could 

 produce so strong a song, and the stranger would 

 treat with confident incredulity the assertion that any 

 insect could so shout merely by lifting and depressing 

 a leg. Butterflies abound, from such eagles of the 

 tribe as the white admiral to the exquisitely sombre 

 mountain winglet, the dainty Apollo, our well-beloved 

 orange-tip and blues running down to the merest dots 

 as butterflies go. There is a strange, whirling insect 

 got up in greenish gold that hurls itself about with 

 the plainest conviction that life is short and must be 

 made the most of. We find one of them fresh from 

 its chrysalis, drying its young wings on a bennet. 

 Its body is an inch long, and terminates behind in a 

 tooth-guarded ovipositor like that of a dragon-fly. 

 But from its head project long and wide antennae, 

 heavily furnished with knobs that go to proclaim it a 

 butterfly. Its wings, again, are not scaled, but just 

 coloured in places with heavy reticulation like the 

 green drake and others of the dragon-fly family. 



The second crop of winged insects is yet more in 

 evidence than the first. Caterpillars of every shape, 

 size, and colour eat all day long, secure from the birds 

 in a hairy covering. Only the big-jawed ants some- 

 times pull them down and worry them along the ant- 

 roads to a place where their juices will be welcome to 

 young mouths. Other caterpillars, smooth ones of 

 the garden-carpet type, are seized by mason-wasps 



