SPORT WITHOUT A GUN. 
69 
in hopeless discomfort, either crawling up and down their 
narrow cages, or lying wasted and lifeless on the moss. In the 
windows of shops where they are kept, one too often sees im- 
prisoned caterpillars, faint with hunger, roaming over stale and 
withered leaves. Should you go in and remonstrate, you are 
told that “they will be fed when their turn comes; there are 
too many to be attended to all at once.” This perhaps long 
past 3 p.m. Reflecting upon the neglect and wretchedness 
almost sure to ensue when insects are either kept alive or killed 
for collecting purposes, I cannot but conclude that simply to 
watch them living their own happy wild life in garden or wood 
or road side, is best for all. 
What a splendid visitant (in very little) recalls itself as I 
write ! It rested on the edge of a book on my writing table one 
morning in June last. My attention was aroused by the waving 
of its long green antennae. The ample, transparent wings, green- 
veined, and suffused with purest prismatic colours, half veiled 
a slender person of fairy green. The full prominent eyes shone 
like jewels of emerald and gold. The whole radiant creature was 
an embodiment of grace and exquisite colour. Alas ! it had no 
speech wherewith to tell that this was its very first appearance 
in winged perfection; that it still was soft and gluey. Presently 
it became restless, and fearing lest it should take flight and lose 
itself within the room, I lightly took it up by the two wings and 
placed it on a leaf outside the window. The dismay with which 
I found the wings adhered and could not open in flight, recurs 
whenever I think of it — the poor maimed lace-wing fly ! I tried 
gently to separate the wings with the point of a small penknife ; 
but all efforts were without avail, and the lace-wing, running 
down under the leaves, had to be left to its fate. It would have 
been better never to have interfered at all. For the handling of 
frames of such wondrous delicacy, human fingers are all too 
coarse. You wall say it would have been no worse to have 
killed the fly and fixed it in a cabinet ! I do not think so. 
E. V. B. 
SPORT WITHOUT A GUN.- 
(HE idea that no opportunities for enjoyment await the 
rambler through woods and fields except in the use of 
a gun is, happily, passing away. To maintain it is to 
admit that one’s eyes and ears are unable to appreciate 
the pictures and music with which woodland and wayside are 
filled, or that one’s mind is not to be affected by the wonderful 
things which nature is constantly disclosing to the attentive 
* This suggestive and thoroughly Selbornian article is quoted by The Photo- 
graphic Nezvs of March 3rd, from Onr Animal Triends, an American book of 
which we should like to know more ; will any transatlantic reader send us a copy, 
so that we may bring it to the notice of our readers? — El). N.N. 
