THE MAKERS OF SUMMER. 223 



carried on as at the edge of that seaweed ; they moved 

 a bushel of it. To the eye there seemed nothing in it 

 but here and there a small white worm ; but they found 

 plenty, and the weather being so bitter, I let them do 

 much as they liked ; I would rather feed than starve 

 them. 



Down at the sea-shore in the sunny hours, out from 

 the woodwork of the groynes or bulwarks, there came a 

 white spotted spider, which must in some way have 

 known the height to which the tide came at that season, 

 because he was far below high-water mark. The moles 

 in an upland field had made in the summer a perfect 

 network of runs. Out of curiosity we opened some, 

 and found in them large brown pupae. In the summer- 

 house, under the wooden eaves, if you look, you will find 

 the chrysalis of a butterfly, curiously slung aslant 

 Coming down Galley Hill, near Hastings, one day, a 

 party was almost stopped by finding they could only 

 walk on thousands of caterpillars, dark with bright 

 yellow bands, which had sprung out of the grass. The 

 great nettles — now, nothing is so common as a nettle — 

 are sometimes festooned with a dark caterpillar, hun- 

 dreds upon each plant, hanging like bunches of currants 

 Could you find a spot the size of your watch-seal 

 without an insect or the germ of one ? 



The agriculturists in some southern counties give 

 the boys in spring threepence a dozen for the heads of 

 young birds killed in the nest. The heads are torn off, 

 to be produced, like the wolves' of old times, as evidence 

 of extinction. This — apart from the cruelty of the 

 practice — is, I think, a mistake, for, besides the insects 

 that injure crops, there are some which may be suspected 

 of being inimical to human life, if not directly, indirectly; 

 and if it were not for birds, we should run a very good 



