260 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



Golden-rod, that plague of the Canadian agriculturist 

 and glory of the English garden, has its crowded 

 reception of smaller flies, as well as of every kind of 

 kawk-fly and hoverer that the garden produces. Deep- 

 humming drone-flies, first to make their appearance in 

 spring, and the last to go under in autumn, are all over 

 the flower-bed, but more especially patronise the large 

 and solemn heads of African marigolds. Here they 

 are joined by small tortoise-shells, red admirals, pea- 

 cocks, and other butterflies, that sip and sip at the 

 nectar, and wink and wink with their large wings, 

 that we can never help thinking must be able to see, 

 and when they fly, only sail deliberately and pleasantly 

 from one flower-bed to another. 



Beneath the golden-rod lurks the envious, unwinged, 

 bloated spider, sitting in the midst of his web, and 

 waiting till one of the revellers shall blunder into it 

 and provide him with his next meal. All round the 

 garden these fat spiders, sometimes red, sometimes 

 brown, sometimes covered with pearl-like spots, stand 

 out conspicuously from the bushes, as they sit in the 

 middle of their webs. But one and all, they have a 

 trick, the object of which is evidently to make them 

 invisible for a while, when special danger threatens 

 them. When you blow on them or touch them with 

 a finger, they seize the ,net with all their feet and 

 shake it very rapidly, so that they disappear for a 

 moment in a whirl of vibration. On the cider-house 

 across the yard a smaller and pluckier spider spins its 

 web from edge to edge of the weather-boarding, for 

 when a wasp blunders in it is not cut adrift as by the 

 garden spider, but attacked and overcome by its tiny 

 captor. Often another spider from the adjoining web 



