20 FISHING FOR PLEASURE 



begins to show himself abroad. He is indeed a 

 monarch among hexapods, with none equal to 

 him, save, perhaps, the great goblin moth, and 

 in shape and size and solidity he bears about 

 the same relation to pretty bright flies as a horned 

 rhinoceros does to volatile squirrels and mon- 

 keys." 



Then he goes on to give us an amusing ac- 

 count of his buzzing flight and clumsy entangle- 

 ments, when, like Coelebs, he is "in search of 

 a wife "; but he does not tell us what he usually 

 feeds upon. Not being a naturalist I will not 

 venture to express any opinion on this subject 

 of food. There seems to be very little known as 

 to the habits of these familiar insects. It has 

 been said that they pass their larval and pupal 

 stages within the trunk of a decaying tree. Prob- 

 ably in the perfect state their food may be some 

 kind of fungus, or dried leaves or decaying wood. 



I have been asked to write something about 

 this book not to review it critically; that is not 

 my department. I come to it, not as wielding 

 the authority of a master, but as a learner a 

 pupil, interested always in all things pertaining 

 to nature, but with the fewest possible oppor- 

 tunities of personally worshipping at her shrine. 

 That is why it gives me infinite pleasure to sit 

 in an easy chair and revel in just such a book as 

 this. The title of it, " Hampshire Days," is really 

 too brief: it almost conceals rather than reveals 



