178 SPRING ACTIVITY 



less. Yonder again are the rooks, clearing the 

 meadow of the young cockchafers, which the heat 

 has brought nearer to the surface ; and which 

 if they were to remain there would soon begin to 

 eat the roots of the grass to such an extent that 

 the turf would peel off as easily as the withered 

 tunic of an onion ; and the labour of one hundred 

 years (for some meadows take that length of time 

 before they reach perfection) would be ruined in 

 one season. Man could not do that which the 

 rook does ; because the rook goes instinctively to 

 the places where the grubs are, just as the light- 

 ning goes instinctively to the elevated point of a 

 metal rod, whereas man would have to learn where 

 to find and how to catch them, and the lesson, 

 simple as the matter appears and is in the case of 

 the rook, would be no easy one. Some of them 

 come from a distance too, for there are the white 

 sea gulls, with their long bent wings and their 

 wailing screams, busy in the same field with the 

 ploughmen, and picking up the " animal weeds," 

 while the ploughs are turning down the vegetable 

 ones. 



All the countless races of that time of labour 

 and of love, both native and visitant, are busy 

 following their own purpose, or rather the law of 

 their being, for they form no purpose of their own, 

 or they would sometimes commit errors of judg- 

 ment as we do, but they do not. At the same 

 time the fulfilment of the law of their being works 

 for good to us, just as the law of the being of a 

 bushel of wheat works for good to us, when we 

 cast it upon the earth, and cover it with dust ; 

 and come back after a season and find ten bushels, 

 nine for food, and one to cast into the earth in 



