312 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE 



are one nation, and sacred to that fair god whom the 

 Carian water-nymph loved not wisely but too well. 

 For, albeit the children of an ancient union, they 

 marry not, nor are given in marriage, yet withal 

 multiply exceedingly, so that one (not two) may in a 

 single season produce a billion. And at last when 

 autumn comes, won back from the cold god to his 

 hot mother, they know love and wedlock, and die 

 like all married things. These are the Aphides — 

 sometimes unprettily called plant-lice, and vaguely 

 spoken of by the iminformed as " blight " — ^and 

 they nourish themselves on vegetable juices, that 

 thin green blood which is the plant's life. 



This, then, is the fruit which the birds have 

 come to gather. In June is their richest harvest ; 

 it is more bountiful than Septenber, when apples 

 redden, and grapes in distant southern lands are 

 gathered for the wine-press. In yon grey wall at the 

 end of the lawn, just above the climbing rose-bush, 

 there are now seven hungry infants in one small 

 cradle, each one, some one says, able to consume its 

 own weight of insect food every day. I am inclined 

 to believe that it must be so, while trying to count 

 the visits paid to the nest in one hour by the parent 

 tits — ^those small tits that do the gardener so much 

 harm ! We know, on good authority, that the spider 

 has a " nutty flavour " ; and most insects in the 

 larval stage afford succulent and toothsome, or at 



