246 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



and untamable fly; and he will afford good sport 

 if hunted a la Domitain, with fine, needle-tipped 

 paper javelins, thrown to impale him on the wall. 



One of our savants has lately prophesied that 

 the time will come when only the microscopic 

 organisms will exist to satisfy the hunting in- 

 stinct in man. How these small creatures will 

 be taken he does not tell us. Perhaps the hunters 

 will station themselves round a table with a drop 

 of preserved water on its centre, made large and 

 luminous by means of a ray of magnifying light. 

 When that time comes the amoeba that "wan- 

 dering Jew," as an irreverent Quarterly Reviewer 

 has called it will lose its immortality, and the 

 spry rotifer will fall a victim to the infinitesimal 

 fine bright arrows of the chase. A strange quarry 

 for men whose paeliolithic progenitors hunted the 

 woolly mastodon and many-horned rhinoceros and 

 sabre-toothed tiger! 



That sad day of very small things for the 

 sportsman is, however, not near, nor within 

 measurable distance ; or, so it seemed to me when, 

 an hour ago, I strolled round the garden, curi- 

 ously peering into every shrub, to find the visible 

 ^nd comparatively noble insect-life in great 



