TERRESTRIAL 203 



the case of most of our hardier migrants, a few may remain with 

 us all the year round." l 



There are many other birds on the links, such as skylarks which 

 nest in the herbage, pied wagtails, sometimes with a cuckoo on 

 their heels, whinchats, the corn-bunting uttering his monotonous 

 bit of song as he surveys the environment from the top wire of 

 the fence, the meadow pipit, the curlew, and the restless solicitous 

 lapwing. Take any one and make some study of it. Take the 

 lapwing, and note the changes in its plumage, the annual 

 partial migration, the apology for a nest, the " false nests " scraped 

 out by the cock when showing off, the excited cries of the cock 

 when the female is startled from her nest, the devices of both 

 parents to divert attention from their young, and so on. 



Meadowland. Pursuing the plan which seems to us best in 

 a work of this kind, we suppose a school excursion to a meadow 

 and we suggest that, to begin with, attention will be profitably 

 confined to a few characteristic animals. 



In early summer one of the first things to strike the eye is 

 the frothy mass so common on the stems of grasses and other 

 low plants. It is called " cuckoo-spit " or " frog-spit/' but what is 

 it ? The pupils will brush aside the bubbles and discover the 

 young insect within which makes the (probably protective) froth. 

 The commonest " frog-hopper/' for there are several, is called 

 Philcenus spumarius or Aphrophora spumaria ; it is one of the 

 plant-bugs in the order Rhynchota, and may be spoken of as a 

 British Cicadid. It sucks the plants and secretes abundant 

 fluid from the hind end of the gut. In some way this assumes 

 a frothy form, and it would be interesting to discover more pre- 

 cisely how the froth is made. Only the young stages of the 

 insect live in this froth, the adult hops about from plant to plant ; 

 and it is a familar fact that the " cuckoo-spit " becomes scarcer 

 as the summer goes on. " The frog-spit is considered by some 

 naturalists to be a protective device ; the larvae are, however, a 

 favourite food with certain Hymenoptera, which pick out the 

 larvae from the spits and carry them off to be used as stores of 

 provision for their larvae." * 



1 See (Dixon) p. 222. * See (Sharpe) p. 222. 



