210 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
broken and blackened skin of the caterpillar and the 
detached thorax: the cocoon is like the baskets for 
taking fish at weirs, only the willows merely touch at the 
tip, and through these he had crept out, and they closed 
behind him. 
The pale purple heather bloom still lies in the bottom 
of the box. Never again shall I see a dayof suchglory |. 
‘of light, of air burning with light ; the very ferns in the 
shade were bright with the glow, despite their soft green. 
A sad hour it was to me, yet I could see all its beauty ; 
sad, too, to think it will never return. So the Emperor 
moth came out on the 2nd of April, and the same day 
. there was a yellow and a white butterfly in the garden. 
There had come a gleam of sunshine after two months 
of bitter north wind, and the insects took life imme- 
diately. Early in the morning the greenfinches were 
screaming at each other in the elm—they were in such 
a hurry to get out their song, they screamed ; the chaf- 
finches were challenging, and the starlings fluttering 
their wings at the high window, and all this excitement 
at one gleam of sun. A friend asked me what bird it 
was that always finished up its song with a loud call for 
‘ ginger-beer ’—whatever he sang he always said ‘ ginger- 
beer’ at the end of it; it is the chaffinch, and a very 
good rendering of the notes. ‘Quawk! Quoak!’ the 
rooks as they went by were so contented enjoying the 
sunshine, they took out the harsh ‘c’ or ‘k’ and substi- 
tuted the softer ‘q’—‘ quawk! quowk!’ Another 
perched on a tree made a short speech, perhaps he. 
thought it was a song. Sea-gulls have curiously rook- 
- fike habits in some respects, following the plough like 
them, and in spring wheeling for hours round and round 
in the sky as the rooks do. | 
The blackbirds and thrushes that had been singin 
