APRIL. 59 



the roots like a mouse, would have attracted your 

 eye, now you look down upon the heaven's blue of 

 the early speedwell (" Buxbaum's Veronica " is what 

 botany books give as its " English " name !) and the 

 clustered bronze and pink of the dead-nettle, while to 

 the starry daisies come several kinds of small bees, 

 all with interesting histories of their own. 



SMALL LIFE OF THE HEDGE-BANK. 



Close by, the glossy blue oil-beetle scrambles 

 heavily along, intent upon laying eggs from which 

 will come active little creatures that will jump on to 

 the bees and be carried home to the nests, where 

 they will eat the bees' eggs and grow fat upon the 

 honey. Here, too, already sit the red two-spotted 

 ladybirds, waging war upon the pestilent plant-lice 

 and laying eggs that will produce little things like 

 spotted grey crocodiles, which will eat the plant-lice 

 even more voraciously than their parents do. And 

 here is a drinker caterpillar a handsome fellow in 

 fur of black, white, and gold, who has waked up from 

 his winter sleep and is basking his full inch and a 

 half in the spring sunlight. And as you stoop to 

 look at him you discover that the ants are out again 

 and are running busily up and down the hedge-bank. 

 So you go on, noticing at each step something that 

 " was not here yesterday." Only now and then the 

 flight or note of a songster, or the discovery of a nest 

 with eggs, reminds you of the birds who for months 

 had almost monopolized your attention ; and where 

 you saw a dozen hares in February you will scarcely 

 see two in mid-April. 



