56 WILD BIRDS 



I hardly think it will be argued they cheat a bird 

 foe. Dead leaves have fungus spots, but the painted 

 lady's rings are not at all like these spots. Indeed, 

 without her rings the painted lady might be obscurer 

 at rest with her wings folded than she is with them : 

 its eye and sense might tell a bird, " that object is 

 not a dead leaf, because dead leaves have not rings 

 like these : it is a butterfly, good to eat." 



But, if I am asked : " Well, what is the meaning 

 of the ring on the painted lady's underside if it be 

 not a mimicking mark ? " I cannot give a clue. 

 The ring, like the comma, is wholly a mystery to me. 



THE BIRDS' CLOCK 



If some virtue has gone out of the broad day, 

 with midsummer past, the evenings have lost none 

 of their enchantment. It is not till the close of 

 June or the beginning of July that we become fully 

 alive to the beauty and the spell of the longest 

 English twilights. The eves at midsummer and 

 just before midsummer are rich and glowing when 

 the mowing grass is ripe for scythe or machine cutter 

 and swaying heavily to the lightest breeze after 

 sundown ; but I think there is scarcely about them 

 that sense of deep and deepening quiet, which often 

 marks those eves of the second half of summer. 



Such twilights after a hot day have the quality 

 of denning with beautiful clearness or sharpness 

 every sound of bird, insect, and wild thing in the 

 fields and woods. This perfect definition of sound 

 in late June and in July twilights is as marked as 



