RUSTIC NATURALISTS 213 



specimens he made himself. In the course of a few 

 years he formed a complete collection of the butter- 

 flies and moths of the district, and became familiar with 

 the other wild life of the county ; he also added music 

 to his accomplishments, and learned the delicate craft of 

 violin-making. Under the composing influence of his 

 naturalist pursuits, his nerves recovered their balance, 

 until his mechanical bent could be indulged without 

 danger ; and he is at present said to be planning 

 the illumination of his native village with electric 

 lights. 



The writer has more than once tried to enlist the 

 services of the rural policemen to observe the habits of 

 night-flying and night-feeding birds and beasts. In 

 many counties these men are drawn from an intelligent 

 class, and they often practise flower-gardening and bee- 

 keeping with great success. But the village constable, 

 though he often makes a useful assistant-astronomer, is 

 less successful as a naturalist ; and though he can be 

 educated to report the movements of comets and erratic 

 meteors with professional accuracy, he generally prefers 

 the starry company of the Pleiades to listening to the 

 night birds in the dark shadow of the pollards, or by 

 the still pools in the valley. In the periodical scares 

 caused by the threatened introduction of some new 

 pest, the lofty indifference of the rural constable to the 

 insects and other " vermin " which he permits to crawl 

 unnoticed on his beat, sometimes leads to trouble 

 and perplexity. During the Colorado-beetle panic, a 

 thoughtful Government caused portraits of the sus- 



