94 BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



berry ; an incautious step and we were floundering in brown 

 peat water and very black mud. In the overhanging 

 clumps the yellow-billed twite, the " heather Untie," 

 made its nest, often using the feathery cotton-grass for 

 a cosy lining; from the oozy mud the snipe rose, dodging 

 and calling; more rarely we disturbed the curlew and 

 heard its plaintive whistle. Doubtless it too nested there, 

 though we never found the nest or the crouching, short- 

 billed young. 



Cranberry and bilberry varied the monotony of ling 

 and heather, for both heaths were plentiful; lush tracts 

 were white with the waving flags of cotton-grass. Sun- 

 dews, three species, took toll of the countless flies which 

 buzzed over the moor and alighted on their sticky, 

 deceitful leaves; marsh andromeda was there, and a 

 few fine clumps of royal fern. Crowberry, often confused 

 with heather, was abundant, as it is on the upland moors. 

 When we disturbed the hare from its form its powerful 

 hind-legs threw up showers of glistening drops as it dodged 

 between the tussocks. We chased and caught the heath 

 moths and the Manchester treble-bar, whose caterpillar 

 devoured the cranberry; we brought away scores of the 

 hairy larvae of the oak-eggar and lost them at home, 

 finding starved unfortunates spinning in out-of-the-way 

 corners where the domestic brush had failed to reach 

 them. The big, green, gold-spangled grub of the emperor 

 moth was a special treasure; we liked to watch it spin 

 its flask-shaped cocoon, and to examine the bottle-neck 

 with its hair-like stopper : no ichneumon can enter, but 

 the emerging moth can easily push its outward way. 

 Beautiful insects were these eyed moths, the males smaller 

 but far richer in colour than the grey females; often, too 

 often, a dipterous parasite, a large fly, appeared in our 

 breeding cases instead of the much prized moth. 



Lizards, though not rare, were elusive; when we saw 



