34 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



wings than the honey bee or syrphus, the hoverer fly 

 (whose strokes to a second Marey, I think, did not 

 count) need not whir them so quickly to reach a high 

 speed ; still, with seventy or so full strokes hi each 

 second, its machinery of motion is wondrous enough. 

 With such a white-hot whir, we may wonder how 

 the insect wings do not kindle heat, set themselves 

 aflame, and shrivel into nothing. 



Figures of miracle motion like these we can add up, 

 estimate to a nicety, as we can weigh a planet. Here 

 we end ; we cannot really grasp and understand them ; 

 they verge on, if strictly they do not belong to, infinity. 

 But theirs is an enchantment which some great con- 

 founding things of infinity may be without they relate 

 to such an exquisite tiny machinery of perfection ; a 

 machinery of muscle to put us out of love with the 

 coarse hair-springs and the great, clumsy cog-wheels 

 of some gemmed and costly watch, a thing that at 

 most can chronicle large fractions of a second. 



The humming-bird hawk, the day-flying sphinx 

 moth of our gardens, is a little flier I have always 

 watched with delight. Though my charming little 

 friend will sometimes fly on summer evenings about 

 sundown, I always imagined it a worshipper of bright 

 hours and warmth. I thought it a sound sleeper, 

 like a butterfly, during rude weather. Yet once I 

 have seen it on the wing brisk as could be on a 

 dark, rough autumn day ! It zigzagged from blossom 

 to blossom red and pink geraniums and, buffeted 



