246 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



of the partridge has led him to this corner of the 

 shoot. The still richer glories of the guelder-rose 

 proper are not yet displayed. They belong to the 

 time of rapidly falling leaves. But the three-lobed 

 fruits of the spindle tree are already in pink, their 

 oddly contrasted scarlet still tightly closed up. 



By midday the sun has gained its short ascendency 

 over the dews of night and the mists of morning. 

 Hot summer reigns. The food of the swallows has 

 been sent high in the blue sky, where the swift birds 

 sweep after it in ever-changing curves. As though 

 by magic, the face of the country, field after field, and 

 farm after farm, becomes spun over with gossamer, 

 millions of tiny spiders having contributed to the 

 immense effect, as if by signal, each one its own tiny 

 effort. On gate-post and hedge-top almost micro- 

 scopic aeronauts stand waving their forelegs in the 

 air as if to try the breeze, then shoot out their silken 

 balloons and fill the whole welkin with drifting, rain- 

 bow-catching films. Again, the air is full of tiny 

 creatures evidently supplying their own lifting power 

 with rapidly moving wings. We have the curiosity 

 to catch one, and it turns out to be a very small 

 earwig. Another and another is the same, and it 

 becomes evident that the countless host we see falling 

 down wind like the ghost of a snow-storm is entirely 

 composed of tiny earwigs. In what great nursery 

 was this horde produced, what is the destination of 

 the overwhelming majority marked for death, and of 

 the very, very select minority destined for survival ? 

 At another hour the swarm may be of black flies, at 

 another of little beetles ; always at this time of year 

 it is of a single species matured by myriads all in one 



