130 Wild Life in a Southern County 



in a lane witli hedges each side, a robin will dart out of the 

 hawthorn and pick up a worm or grub almost under your 

 feet ; then in his alarm at your presence drop it, and rush 

 back in a flutter. Other birds will do the same thing, 

 from which it would seem that the old saying that the eye 

 sees what it comes to see is as applicable to them as to 

 human beings. Their eyes, ever on the watch for food, 

 instantly detect a tiny creeping thing several yards dis- 

 tant, though concealed by grass ; but the comparatively 

 immense bulk of a man appears to escape notice till they 

 fly almost up against it. 



I fancy that the hive bee and some kindred insects have 

 a special faculty of seeing colour at a distance, and that 

 colours attract them. It can hardly be scent, because 

 when flowers are placed in a room and the window left 

 open, the wind generally blows strongly into the apart- 

 ment, and odours will not travel against a breeze. It 

 seems natural that in both cases the continual watch for 

 certain things should enable bird and insect to observe the 

 faintest indication. Slugs, caterpillars, and such creatures, 

 too, in moving among the grass, cause a slight agitation of 

 the grass-blades ; they lift up a leaf by crawling under it, 

 or depress it with their weight by getting on it. This 

 may enable the bird to detect their presence, even when 

 quite hidden by the herbage, experience having taught it 

 that when grass is moved by the wind broad patches sway 

 simultaneously, but when an insect or caterpillar is the 

 agent only a single leaf or blade is stirred. 



At the farmhouse here, robins, wrens, and tomtits are 

 always hanging about the courtyard, especially close to 

 the dairy, where one or other may be constantly seen 

 perched on the palings ; neither do they scruple to enter 

 the dairy, the brewhouse, or wood-house adjacent, when 



