326 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



of the book of nature is between the lines and in the 

 foot-notes of descending tininess of type, while we are 

 usually content to read only the large print. It is 

 nothing that a red butterfly should settle on a green 

 leaf, but it is immensely interesting when the eye 

 brings up from the brown of a tree-trunk the brown 

 wings, with bark marks on them, of a moth with 

 crimson under-wings. It is nothing to see the black 

 rooks swinging on their conspicuous nests in the tree- 

 tops ; it is something to find that one of the mottled 

 sticks among many others on the floor of a wood 

 is a night-jar brooding a pair of still more invisible 

 eggs. 



We cannot use our eyes out of doors without learn- 

 ing to appreciate the sight and the understanding of 

 those more nearly concerned than ourselves with 

 unravelling the mysteries of mimicry and protective 

 coloration. Much the same picture is presented to 

 the lens of the bird as to ours. The greater attention of 

 the bird to what it sees is evidenced by the depth to 

 which mimicry has had to go in order to defeat it. 

 The stick-insect is discovered and plucked wriggling 

 from its bush, if its resemblance to one of the twigs 

 falls short by some thorn or scale. The counterfeit 

 wasp is unmasked unless its verisimilitude is fairly 

 exact. The chrysalis that does not exactly resemble 

 the seed- pod of Cardamine pratensis pays the penalty 

 of failure. We need not claim that the bird reasons 

 about these things. As has been shown, we do not 

 reason about our knowledge of them. The difference 

 between the flight of a bee and a fly can be stated, 

 but it is not stated every time we decide, " This is a 

 fly and that is a bee." The decision is instinctive 



