BRITISH BUTTERFLIES 



rises in steam from the grass, and collects in dense 

 cloud-masses which, following one another, roll slowly 

 across the meadow, and spread out over the rank 

 herbage by the hedgerow, like smoke-puffs from the 

 sportsman's gun on a November afternoon. Half 

 an hour since, I noticed that all the webs in the furze 

 brakes around had evidently been completed before 

 the dawn ; for no spider continued at work among 

 the strands. The reason for this early toil is apparent. 

 Had the spiders delayed their tasks till the moisture 

 rose from the grass in the growing heat, their threads 

 would have been softened and rendered useless even 

 as they were spun. But since the webs have been 

 hardened by the cool night air, the passing mist only 

 decks them with a thousand pearls, that trickle along the 

 threads and fall to the grass, or are in turn absorbed 

 by the heat. 



When, later, I come again into the fields, the mist 

 has gone, but in the shadows beneath the leaves the 

 dew still lingers. The pearls of dew, that were flushed 

 by the rose-tinge of the eastern sky, have, in the clearer 

 light, become diamonds, that glow and sparkle with a 

 dazzling radiance almost unbearable to the eye. A 

 few late spiders, less learned, perhaps, in weather-lore 

 than their companions which spun during the night, 

 but finding that the mist has disappeared, are busy 

 placing their snares among the brambles for the unwary 



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