CHAPTER IX 



INSECT LIFE (Continued) 



THERE is a spot on the railway bank facing south-east 

 which I cannot pass on hard winter days without 

 recalling the rich June scene of butterflies and moths. 

 I think of its little Bedford blue butterflies, and swift- 

 flitting skippers, and the wood tiger moth, that seems 

 to fly at random among the grasses and flowers, yet 

 will return day after day to the same patch of ground. 

 The difference between this place in June and in 

 January is incalculable. In January, its thin cover 

 searched through and through by the east wind, it 

 is exposed, colourless, uninviting; by June a garden 

 of honey. 



But June sleeps in January. The whole wealth of 

 the summer, when this bank will be a paradise, is 

 actually stored here now. The place need not draw 

 its flower, grass, and insect population from fields and 

 woods around. It is self-contained. The flowers and 

 butterflies and day-flying moths heath moth, orange 

 underwing (brephos), wood tiger, six spot burnet are 

 scattered over this bit of chilly ground, which, like 

 the marsh in mid- winter, looks as if it could never 

 live again. They sleep obscure, epitomised in tiny 



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