94 
THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S WEEKLY INTELLIGENCER. 
which, when I saw it last September, 
was full of ants of several species, and 
then, as the author of the ‘ Elegy written 
in a Country Churchyard’ said Melan- 
choly had done to himself, so I did to 
this bank, “ marked it for my own.” In 
the autumn this bank was sodden with 
rain, the burrows of the ants were firm, 
and were easily opened and searched ; 
but, although I found no beetles therein 
during the short time I detained the 
party who had come out merely for a 
drive, I saw enough to induce me to 
think that in the spring it would be a 
very promising place in which to seek 
Hetcerius sesquicornis and other lovers of 
the society of ants that burrow in banks. 
So when I turned my steps thither last 
month I was full of hope of getting a 
glimpse of the inner life of the ants and 
their guests. “ Hope,” as usual, “ told 
a flattering tale,” but, instead of the 
beautiful well-appointed nests I saw in 
September, I now found the whole sur- 
face of the ground to be in powder, and 
not an ant visible. Patiently I sought 
along the whole extent of the bank, — 
about a quarter of a mile, — but neither 
ant nor beetle was visible ; so I cau- 
tiously probed the earth in many places, 
and when I occasionally unearthed an 
ant, I endeavoured to follow up his 
track, but the friable earth soon fell into 
it and obliterated every trace of his 
home or the road to it, and, after trying 
for an hour or two, I gave up the en- 
deavour. I cast about what was best to 
be done, and at a venture mounted the 
bank and trespassed into the plantation, 
which had a very neglected appearance, 
and, as was afterwards told me, “ the 
estate was going to the dogs.” Bark was 
lying plentifully about, stripped from 
some oaks newly felled, and, the day being 
desperately hot, I cast myself down. 
Wberee’r the oak’s thick branches stretch 
A broader, browner shade — 
Wheree’r the rude and moss-grown beech 
O’er-canopies the glade. 
^ ^ % 
Still is the toiling hand of Care ; 
The panting herds repose ; 
Yet hark, how through the peopled air 
The busy murmur glows ! 
The insect youth are on the wing, 
Eager to taste the honied spring, 
And float amid the liquid noon." 
And thus the train of thought suggested 
by Gray’s ‘Ode to Spring’ came un- 
bidden to my mind as I lay and heard 
“ The Attic warbler pour her throat 
Kesponsive to the cuckoo’s note,” 
and became utterly oblivious of what is 
called reality, that if I had suddenly 
been asked who I was and what I was 
doing, I should have been puzzled to 
give any answer. The first thing that 
engaged my attention was a small 
grey spider, who amused himself and me 
at the same time by springing upon 
flies, hopping just like Haltica. I am 
sorry I did not know this gentleman’s 
name, and although I fixed him iu a box 
for the purpose of getting this informa- 
tion afterwards, yet he defeated my pur- 
pose by dying and shrivelling, so that no 
member even of his own family could 
recognise him. Of spiders as of men 
’tis true 
“ The paths of glory lead but to the grave.” 
The slumps of the felled oaks afforded 
common Oxyteli in plenty, Oinalium 
planum, and one specimen of Coryphium 
angusticolle, all revelling in the exud- 
ing sap ; and in the earth immediately 
adjoining were Lathrimmum unicolor 
and other common things. Blue-bells 
abounded — 
* “ The hyacinth purple and white and blue. 
Which flung from its hells a sweet peal anew. 
Of music so delicate, soft and intense, 
It was felt like an odour within the sense,” 
