The Wisdom of Instinct 



"Live Ephippigers? " replies mile. 

 " Why, I have some perfectly fresh ones, 

 caught this morning! " 



He dashes upstairs, four steps at a time, 

 and runs to his little den, where a fence of 

 dictionaries encloses a park for the rearing 

 of some fine caterpillars of the Spurge Hawk- 

 moth. He brings me three Ephippigers, the 

 best that I could wish for, two females and a 

 male. 



How did these insects come to be at hand, 

 at the moment when they were wanted, for 

 an experiment tried in vain twenty years ago ? 

 That is another story. A Lesser Grey 

 Shrike had nested in one of the tall plane- 

 trees of the avenue. Now a few days earlier, 

 the mistral, the brutal north-west wind of our 

 parts, blew with such violence as to bend the 

 branches as well as the reeds; and the nest, 

 turned upside down by the swaying of its 

 support, had dropped its contents, four small 

 birds. Next morning, I found the brood 

 upon the ground ; three were killed by the fall, 

 the fourth was still alive. The survivor was 

 entrusted to the cares of mile, who went 

 Cricket-hunting twice a day on the neighbour- 

 ing grass-plots for the benefit of his young 

 charge. But Crickets are small and the 

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