1 68 Wild Life in a Southern County 



butterflies pass this way, calling en route. Sometimes a 

 great noble of the butterfly world comes in all the glory of 

 his wide velvety wings, and deigns to pause awhile that 

 his beauty may be seen. 



Somewhere within doors, in the huge beams or wood- 

 work, the death-tick is sure to be heard in the silence of 

 the night : even now the old folk listen with a lingering 

 dread. Give the woodwork a smart tap, and the insect 

 stops a few moments, but it rapidly gets accustomed to 

 such taps, and after a few ceases to take notice of them. 

 This manner of building houses with great beams visibly 

 supporting the ceiling, passing across the room underneath 

 it, had one advantage. On a rainy day the children could 

 go into the garrets or the cheese-loft and there form a 

 swing, attaching the ropes to the hooks in the beam across 

 the ceiling. 



The brewhouse, humble though its object may be, is 

 not without its claim to admiration. It is open from the 

 floor to the rafters of the roof, and that roof in its pitch, 

 the craft of the woodwork, the dull polish of the old oak, 

 has an interest far surpassing the dead staring level of fla't 

 lath and plaster. Noble workmanship in wood may be 

 found, too, in some of the ancient barns ; sometimes the 

 beams are of black oak, in others of chestnut. 



In these modern days men have lost the pleasures of 

 the orchard; yet an old-fashioned orchard is the most 

 delicious of places wherein to idle away the afternoon of a 

 hazy autumn day, when the sun seems to shine with a soft 

 slumberous warmth without glare, as if the rays came 

 through an aerial spider's web spun across the sky, letting 

 all the beauty, but not the heat, slip through its invisible 

 meshes. There is a shadowy coolness in the recesses under 

 the trees. On the damson trunks are yellowish crystalline 



