VARIOUS PAETS OF NATURE 335 



HOUNDS. 



The king's stag-hounds came down to Alton, attended by a 

 huntsman and six yeoman prickers, with horns, to try for the 

 stag that has haunted Hartley Wood and its environs for so long 

 a time. Many hundreds of people, horse and foot, attended the 

 dogs to see the deer unharboured ; but though the huntsmen drew 

 Hartley Wood, and Long Coppice, and Shrubwood, and Temple 

 Hangers, and in their way back Hartley and Ward le ham Hangers, 

 yet no stag could be found. 



The royal pack, accustomed to have the deer turned out before 

 them, never drew the coverts with any address and spirit, as 

 many people that were present observed ; and this remark the 

 event has proved to be a true one. For as a person was lately 

 pursuing a pheasant that was wing-broken in Hartley Wood, he 

 stumbled upon the stag by accident, and ran in upon him as he 

 lay concealed amidst a thick brake of brambles and bushes. 



OBSERVATIONS ON INSECTS AND VERMES. 

 INSECTS IN GENERAL. 



The day and night insects occupy the annuals alternately : the 

 papilios, musccB, and apes, are succeeded at the close of day by 

 phakeruB, earwigs, woodlice, &c. In the dusk of the evening, 

 when beetles begin to buz, partridges begin to call ; these two 

 circumstances are exactly coincident. 



Ivy is the last flower that supports the hymenopterous and 

 dipterous insects. On sunny days quite on to November they 

 swarm on trees covered with this plant ; and when they disappear, 

 probably retire under the shelter of its leaves, concealing them- 

 selves between its fibres and the trees which it entwines. 



Spiders, woodlice, lepisnm in cupboards and among sugar, some 

 empedes, gnats, flies of several species, some phalmnw in hedges, 

 earth-worms, &c. are stirring at all times when winters are mild ; 

 and are of great service to those soft-billed birds that never leave 

 us. 



On every sunny day the winter through, clouds of insects 

 usually called gnats (I suppose tipulos and empedes) appear 

 sporting and dancing over the tops of the ever-green trees in 



