THROUGH THE YEAR 9 



them at tremendous speed. I have not seen this 

 effect in any other insect hovering thus. With 

 other insects the wing looks either distorted as 

 volucella's or misty, as the humming-bird hawk- 

 moth's. 



Does bombilius move its wings at such an intense 

 speed whilst anchored in space that the speed is 

 obliterated to the eye, or is it something in the 

 texture or shading of the wing that makes this 

 curious effect ? I can hardly imagine that bom- 

 bilius whirrs at whiter heat of motion than volucella. 

 The larger bombilius seems much slower and less 

 alert, and its wings, as it whirrs, appear misty. 



THE PHEASANT'S NEST 



The pheasant is the most careless of mothers 

 and yet she can be so careful. Whilst I was trout 

 fishing in the Rother, the keeper took me to see a 

 pheasant's nest on the side of a copse bank sloping 

 down close to the stream a little copse in a pastoral 

 land full of babbling white throats and prank t with 

 spring flowers and bursting buds. But at first he 

 could not find the nest, and had to thrust lightly 

 aside the dead grass and undergrowth around it, 

 for she had covered over her eggs with dead leaves. 

 Now here is this odd fact some pheasants cover 

 their eggs when they are off the nest, whilst others 

 leave the eggs bare. One hen pheasant strikes us 

 as exactly like another, and whilst shooting we 

 often notice that the hens are very stupid, beating 

 against wire fencing where the cock birds will run 



B 



