115 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



and seems to the touch of firmer texture than the lower; 

 there are no marks on the under surface, which does not 

 seem touched, so that what the creature has really done 

 is to split one surface. He has eaten along underneath 

 it, raising it no doubt a little by the thickness of his 

 body, as if you crept between the carpet and the floor. 

 The softer under surface representing the floor is un- 

 touched. The woodbine leaves are often bored like this, 

 and seem to have patterns traced upon them. There is 

 no particle of matter so small but that it seems to have 

 a living thing working at it and resolving it into still 

 more minute atoms ; nothing so insignificant but that 

 upon examination it will be found to be of the utmost 

 value to something alive. Upon almost every fir branch 

 near the end there are little fragments like cotton, so 

 thick in places as to quite hang the boughs with threads ; 

 these gossamer-like fragments appear to be left by some 

 insect, perhaps an aphis ; and it is curious to note how very 

 very busy the little willow-wrens are in the fir boughs. 

 They are constantly at work there ; they sing in the firs 

 in the earliest spring, they stay there all the summer, 

 and now that the edge of autumn approaches their tiny 

 beaks are still picking up insects the whole day long. 

 The insects they devour must be as numerous as the fir 

 needles that lie inches thick on the ground in the 

 copse. 



Across a broad, dry, sandy path, worn firm, some 

 thousands of ants passing to and fro their nest had left 

 a slight trail. They were hurrying on in full work, when 

 I drew the top of my walking-stick across their road, 

 obliterating about an inch of it. In an instant the work 

 of the nest was stopped, and thousands upon thousands 

 of factory hands were thrown out of employment. The 

 walking-stick had left two little ridges of sand like 



