THE CONTRAST 163 



back to a tiny midge, flit, dart, or hover. From each wing 

 comes some sound, some vibration, perceptible or imper- 

 ceptible, which in the aggregate makes the busy, joyful 

 hum of the wood. What does it all mean ? The enjoy- 

 ment of summer ? The joy of living ? 



Look at the scene from another standpoint ; look closely 

 and critically, and watch the varying actors in this great 

 life drama. Is it comedy or tragedy ? The big leaves 

 are stained, ragged, and torn; aphis, coccid, and fungus 

 have blotched or scored them ; leaf-miners have left their 

 subcutaneous tracks in their tissues; larvae have riddled 

 and devoured their living flesh, drained their life blood. 

 There are defoliated twigs on the oak, and a pretty little 

 green- winged moth on the trunk; it and the mottled 

 umber know what has become of those leaves; tortrix 

 and geometer caterpillars were nourished upon them. 

 A passing chaffinch sees the moth; one snap and it is 

 gone. Everywhere is evidence of the larval insatiability 

 of moth, beetle, sawfly, and dipteron, and everywhere 

 ichneumons and other predaceous insects have attacked 

 the caterpillars. Fungi push their brown or lurid red 

 caps through the rotting leaf-mould, flourishing on decay; 

 spongy fungus galls knob the half-submerged roots of the 

 alder; fungi spot the decaying broken twigs and branches. 

 One huge limb of the old white willow is down, and 

 decomposition is destroying good timber; the wood-louse 

 and centipede use its hollowing carcase for a shelter. An 

 ancient oak is struggling for breath in the strangle-hold 

 of the ivy; woody nightshade, honeysuckle, and other 

 climbers trail over and smother any bush or shrub in 

 their way. For yards the young reeds are already 

 bruised and broken, for the weight of hundreds of roosting 

 starlings has exceeded their power of endurance. 



A rabbit screams, or the hunger cry of some young birp 

 turns to a shrill note of terror and ends in a gasping sob; 



