MARCH. 51 



SUMMER'S SKIRMISHERS. 



For it is the small life of nature that is always 

 first to follow on the heels of departing winter, like 

 swarms of light skirmishers harassing the rear of a 

 retreating foe. In December or January the sun has 

 only to peep out for an hour or two to bring forth 

 the gnats, dancing airily in defiance of winter above 

 their strongholds in the furze bushes ; and even 

 before all the snow has departed from under the 

 hedgerows you may go out on a thawing night and 

 find fat caterpillars comfortably feeding on the grass 

 tufts above the lingering snow ; and on the bare 

 twigs of the hedges the lantern's light reveals the 

 winter moths conducting their December courtships 

 with complacent confidence in fate. And when the 

 tide of the year's war has definitely turned towards 

 summer's victory though, as in another war that we 

 wot of, belated mishaps or even " serious reverses " 

 may always be in store the myriads of little things, 

 that skip and crawl and fly, multiply unceasingly. 

 The bees are busy among the crocuses and so, 

 alas ! are the sparrows spiders creep out of crevices 

 in the wall, and hosts of armoured wood-lice sally by 

 night out of the cracks in old tree-trunks ; moths 

 crawl from their empty pupa-cases at the roots of 

 trees, and dry their wings upon the bark ; while at 

 noon the sunlight flickers with small life that flies. 



SPRING AND BIRDS' NESTS. 

 The cyclist realizes the awakening of Nature when, 

 whirling between quiet hedgerows, he gets a small 

 beetle in his eye in every hundred yards ; for the 



