At Home with Wild Nature 



wind, his glassy wings flashing and glinting in the sun- 

 shine like miniature heliograph mirrors. 



After this the spider performed a miracle. Fasten- 

 ing thread upon thread to the comparatively huge body 

 of his victim he retired to his parlour and did something 

 which lifted the dragon fly up higher and higher until it 

 was finally harvested home. Very fortunately I was 

 able to secure the greater part of this truly wonderful 

 performance in a moving-picture record before my 

 supply of film gave out. 



It is surprising how quickly and accurately wild 

 creatures learn to differentiate between familiar and un- 

 familiar sounds. One day whilst stretched at full 

 length in a plantation on the fringe of the moor this 

 fact was suddenly and forcibly brought home to my 

 mind. I was watching a squirrel hunting back and 

 forth in a mossy sunlit glade, as if trying to find a nut 

 he had hidden and couldn't remember where. He took 

 not the slightest notice of the noisy clatter of a wood 

 pigeon in the branches overhead, but the snapping of a 

 rotten twig under the pressure of my elbow as I raised 

 my body to get a better view of him approaching an 

 intervening belt of bracken put the fear of death into 

 his little heart, and away he scampered up the trunk of 

 the nearest tree. 



I was forcibly reminded of this some time afterwards 

 whilst kinematographing a pair of cirl buntings feeding 

 their young ones in a nest found for me by my son-in- 

 law, Mr. Howard Bentham. The nest was situated 

 within two yards of a much-used high road, and 



138 



