INSECT COLLECTING. 
67 
The water sings, and the busy swallows 
Hunt for the Mayflies in sunny hollows. 
Here, like gold, are king-cups growing. 
Forget-me-nots close to the waters flowing. 
Anemones pale, here tenderly blows 
The violet sweet and the pure primrose. 
Away to the woods ! the thrushes sing 
All day long, how their glad notes ring 
Among the larches sweet and clear 
All through the nesting time of year. 
The blackbird warbles loud after rain. 
The cuckoo calls, again, again. 
The chaffinches drop from their silvery throats 
A little peal of merry notes. 
As though they laughed with pure delight ; 
While deep wood and out of sight. 
Tenderly, softly, the shy wood dove 
Murmurs all day her note of love. 
Away to the forest ! The solemn firs 
Stand like sentinels dark and high. 
And the wind continually moves and stirs 
In their topmost boughs a gentle sigh. 
And a star rises up in the evening sky. 
And like the temple of God it seems 
More holy and grand than our loftiest dreams. 
And the pine trees murmur of peace more deep 
Than dreaming waters or infant sleep. 
Here I would stay, while the twilight dies. 
Till the sunset fades, till the pale moonrise 
Over the dark woods sheds its light. 
In the dying day, in the solemn night. 
Here there is always a whisper of peace 
Ever persistent, it does not cease. 
M.R.G.B. 
INSECT-COLLECTING. 
Y I venture to express regret that the author of Move 
About Wild Nature, should in that attractive volume 
seem to advocate (pp. 238, 239) the collecting of insects 
on the part of the young, in their pursuit of Nature- 
study. As a child I was myself an enthusiastic entomologist 
and collector. There does not now seem to me any necessity 
that the two should go together ; and this more especially when 
I recall the horrors that so often took place. Not seldom were 
the larger lepidoptera, supposed to be killed quite dead over 
night, found next morning wriggling on their pins — or, far worse. 
