WITH THE WOODLANDERS. 31 



sphinxes enter the old - fashioned skeps. The 

 death's-head moth is a real terror to any household 

 that it may visit ; so are bats. Things of darkness 

 they call these. One touching ceremony is still 

 observed by the old people who keep bees that of 

 going to the hives and telling the inmates when 

 a death takes place in the family. One of my 

 rustic friends once told me he would get me some 

 moon-seed. The wonderful properties of this small 

 moon-wort fern, which are still firmly believed 

 in, would cause my readers to smile if I related 

 them. Some curious old copies of works on herbs 

 are still to be found in the homes of the wood- 

 land families, in which all the planetary influences 

 are minutely given. These are most precious 

 property, jealously guarded from profane eyes. The 

 best and most costly work on botany of the pres- 

 ent day would be regarded as dirt compared with 

 their old musty treasures, for they deal with some 

 of those mysteries of Nature, those problems they 

 have been trying to work out in their own fashion 

 all their lives. 



The black art, the fancied possession of forbidden 

 knowledge, although repudiated by the greater por- 



