MOORLAND IDYLLS. 



developing seeds. This may seem odd at 

 first, but it is a common incident in many 

 life-histories of plants and animals. As a 

 rule, indeed, the butterfly or winged stage 

 of most insect lives is wholly devoted to 

 a marriage flight ; and there are several 

 winged insects which never feed at all in 

 the perfect state ; they use themselves up 

 in the formation of eggs, and then die of 

 inanition. 



Most of the sister campanulas, like Canter- 

 bury bells, are stiff and coarse and hairy 

 plants, without grace or elegance ; but that 

 is because they haunt woods and copses, 

 or overgrown hedgerows, where they are 

 sheltered from the wind, and enabled to grow 

 large and rampant. The harebell, on the 

 contrary the oread of its race is a denizen 

 of the open, wind-swept uplands ; it loves 

 the moors and heaths, the bare hilly pas- 

 tures ; and it has learnt in consequence to 

 bend lightly before the breeze, springing 

 up again as those invisible feet pass on, 

 248 



