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beauty of their mazarine blue, sanguine green, and white tints, to the charms of 
those solitary spots, where, seated on the heath beneath the birchen shade, the 
tired Naturalist, while he rests his wearied frame, marks with pleasure the succes¬ 
sive gleams of coloured light, as band after band of these bright creatures flutter 
about the pink Polygoni or sober brown shaggy and wiggy Bulrushes. 
A. autmnnalis (Lestes autumnalis , Leach) is a species that appears late in the 
year, with light-brown thorax and abdomen, and membranaceous wings marked 
with “ an oblong-quadrate parallelepiped stigma.” Unlike its congeners, its incon¬ 
spicuous colours render it an object of no attraction, and, coming with the close of 
summer amidst rains and falling leaves, its manners and habits have been little 
attended to or regarded. There is still much to be learned respecting this inte¬ 
resting tribe, both as regards their larva and perfect state; and he who would 
publish a monograph of the British Libellulidae in English, with accurate figures 
of the whole, would be rendering a very acceptable service to entomological sci¬ 
ence, since I can refer to no English publication at present, for a description of 
all the species, though Mr. Stephens in his splendid work has much enlarged the 
Agriones . 
But while we have been thus dilating upon the Libellulidae, the sun shining 
forth with almost insufferable radiance, warns us that however congenial his heat 
may be to them, it is too powerful for us, and the shade of yonder oak coppice 
offers a grateful shelter. A spring over the brook, a crash upon the broad leaves 
of the Tussillago , and we are within it. How deliciously cool; while not a 
sound breaks the stillness, and not even a vagrant fly molests us. Alone in 
gloomy quietude Paris quadrifolia lurks, with her single sable berry surrounded 
by the green calyx; and springing up among the dead oak leaves the curious or- 
chideous plant Listera nidus-avis , can at a little distance be scarcely distinguished 
from them, though now opening her singular brown dead-like flowers. On, now 
then, to inhale the thymy fragrance of the hill top, where the minute flesh-coloured 
and delicate blossoms of the Ornithopus perpusillus couch lowly on the.earth., 
spreading out their curious legumes in imitation of the feet of birds, and where in 
long trailing spikes the dark purple Milkwort (Polygala) spreads out her winged 
petals, and the blue Argus butterfly wantons among the rising brakes, just unfold¬ 
ing their curled-up fronds. But the Pheasant has just risen with a loud whir 
from the eggs she was sitting upon, and an alarmed gamekeeper who will know 
nothing of our “ untaxed and undisputed game” is approaching. Perhaps on a 
future occasion, blue skies and sunny hours may urge us to be “ abroad ” again, 
gleaning delight amid the attractions of the woods and fields. 
