HUMOURS OF INSECT LIFE 



Having apparently masticated the pulp and reduced it 

 to a condition fit for her purpose, she flies to the hedge- 

 row bank, where, behind a frond of brake fern, she disap- 

 pears within the shadowed entrance of her underground 

 abode. 



The afternoon declines as I return homeward from 

 the fields. Among the brake-fern on the outskirts of 

 the woodlands the midges are numerous and trouble- 

 some, for the dragon-flies are at rest among the leaves. 

 When the sun sinks in the west, dusky moths commence 

 to flutter around the pale evening-primrose in the rough 

 pastures on my way over the slope of the hill, while a 

 noisy beetle booms up from the grassy lane leading to 

 the village, and passes into the gloom, with a loud 

 murmur that gradually becomes fainter and fainter, 

 and at last dies away across the swollen river. 



113 8 



