A WALK THROUGH AN ENGLISH LANE. 95 



having to be removed which is done very adroitly and 

 without pause. Will he eat a wasp ? Certainly he will ; 

 and though I never tried him with a hornet, they being 

 unchancy insects to hold while one hand is otherwise 

 engaged, I have little doubt but that the hornet would 

 soon disappear into the same receptacle with the other 

 insects. You may go on catching insects for him as 

 long as you like, and he will go on eating them, having 

 no apparent limit to capacity. I once gave a dragon- 

 fly thirty-seven large flies and four long-legged spiders, 

 and only ceased because I was tired of catching before 

 he was tired of eating. 



Having admired him sufliciently, let him go. Off 

 he darts to a branch, sits down for a moment, shakes 

 his wings, as if to assure himself that they are fit for 

 service, and then flashes off, as cruel and as voracious 

 as if he had been fasting for a week. He does not 

 spend all his time after this fashion, though he was 

 always a predacious creature. His first few years were 

 passed in the water, where he lurked under the banks, 

 and chased the aquatic insects as fiercely as, when he 

 got his wings, he pursued the inhabitants of air. In 

 fact, the only change in him is that he was first a 

 crocodile and then a dragon. 



What beautiful butterflies, too, flit through our 

 lane, varying with the time of day and the season of 

 the year. There is the magnificent peacock butterfly, 

 with its glorious ' eyes ' upon the wings, like the spots 

 on a peacock's train ; the atalanta, or scarlet admiral, 



