THE RESTLESS CHASSE OF A RED ADMIRAL 3 



INTRODUCTION 



THE world is * full of a number of things ' things 

 which would keep us as well primed with interest and 

 wonder as the children are, if we had a little more curiosity. 

 As the towns absorb life more and more, our minds more 

 and more seek escape from urban thoughts ; and the appetite 

 is whetted for the incidents of the country, for the course of 

 the seasons, for what we call nature. After all, the seasons 

 give us a ' grand tour,' for which we need not travel. The 

 coming of the purple flowers on the elm or the green buds 

 on the quick is never stale ; nor the flight of the swallow, 

 nor the turning of the maple leaf, nor the crystals of hoar- 

 frost, nor the restless chass6 of a red admiral. 



At the sunset we may be daily amazed and never tire of 

 reading, on the scroll unfolded by the winds between earth 

 and heaven, 



1 Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance.' 



Among the deeper moods and ampler spectacles of nature 

 take place a thousand pretty and curious episodes. The 

 hop tendril, as if endowed with mind, bridges a pergola. 

 A dormouse goes to sleep in the beehive. A stoat sleeps 

 in a thrush's nest. Three birds share a nesting-box. An 

 ugly creature climbs a water-lily stem, and from the dull and 



A 



