HORNET AND BANK-VOLE 21 



what it is all about. One must at least read pre- 

 face and contents of chapters to find out. It is 

 clear, however, from these that the author has 

 spent not only days but weeks and months and 

 years in wandering about the woods and forests 

 of Hampshire, and the book is the outcome of 

 wide experience and knowledge. 



I find it the pleasantest occupation possible 

 to sit in an armchair and luxuriate in the pleas- 

 ant pictures, scenes, animals, birds, and insects 

 which, as in a charming panorama, pass under 

 my eyes in these pages this is pleasure, but to 

 perform the allotted task of writing about them, 

 that is labour ! for while every page has a charm 

 of its own it is not easy to discriminate. It is 

 needless to say that the book is an exceedingly 

 readable one. The author not only describes 

 well what he sees and does, from the naturalist's 

 point of view, but the book has a pleasant 

 literary tone not always found in the works of 

 naturalists. 



There are fourteen chapters, and if I extract 

 a bit here and there it must not be inferred that 

 they are the best, but only as samples of good 

 and curious things with which it abounds. Here 

 is something about my old friend the hornet: 



" I was sitting in the shade of a large elm 

 tree one day, when I was visited by a big hornet, 

 who swept noisily down and settled on the trunk 

 four or five feet above the ground. A quantity 



