PICTURES ON BUTTERFLIES' WINGS(JULY)

The ant retreated hurriedly, but all that night she sat at the shaft's mouth, and barred the way below with her own body.

Next day the weather mended—a blaze of sun from an unclouded sky, and, on the sand-cliff, ecstasy of life.

Hard work in store for Spinipes! Three hours she spent in raising a fresh tower, five hours in reprovisioning her burrow. But she no longer worked alone. For others of her race had found the cliff, and other towers, twin to her own, were rising from the sand-ledge. Between them pygmy diggerwasps dug shafts to match their bodies, and trident-tailed ichneumons sailed about them, and sneaking, prying, jewel flies, here, there, and everywhere on mischief bent.

Shecaughther old acquaintance, caught her in the act, and dragged her out, and stung her as was promised.

"I looked inside, that's all—that's really all," whimpered the culprit as she clutched the rim.

"Take that—and that—and that," said Spinipes, and drove her sharp sting home. But jewel flies are toughened folk, and this one, flung aside at last, was in full flight, and merry as a grig, within a minute of her punishment.

Daily the work grew harder. It took more time to find the grubs, since other wasps were hunting, and soon the increasing bulk of them taxed her full powers of flight. Once, as she neared the ledge, she dropped her burden. It lay where it had fallen till it died, for neithershe nor other of her kind had wit to forge, or mend, a link in instincts broken chain. Once she found strange additions to her store. A human hand had robbed a neighbouring shaft and, with well-meant intention, sought to help her. Vain fancy! Here the self-same chain (to hunt—to catch—to bring—to store) was, end for end, reversed. The alien grubs were, one by one, dragged forth, and, one by one, flung headlong.

SHE SANK FIVE OTHER CURVING SHAFTS AND BUILT FIVE TOWERS TO GUARD THEM

Within a week the burrow held full store, a stack of five-and-twenty grubs piled up to meet the egg. This last was at the hatching-point. The silken cord, by which it hung, had lengthened with its growth, and each hour found it closer to its food. All had gone well, and Spinipes' last task, to seal the shaft with a partition-wall, was soon accomplished. Nor did she ever see that egg again. In time the tower itself fell in—I fancy that she helped it, and in its falling, smothered the main entrance.

She sank five other curving shafts—each held an egg—andbuilt five towers to guard them. She made five further stores of grubs; and then, her life-work ended, she crept into a cleft and died.

What of the eggs? you ask. They hatched to golden yellow grubs, which fattened on the food stores, and when, at length, their food was all consumed, they spun them silken coverlets, and changed from grubs to sleeping nymphs. They slept through autumn's dreariness, through winter's cold, through spring's soft showers, and, when at length the warmth of summer beckoned, they burst their bonds, and, working through the sand, flew forth, as those before them had flown forth. So recommenced the cycle. An æon back it was the same. An æon hence—who knows?

The Magpie Moth

I havealready told you of the beautiful colours to be found on butterflies' wings, and how people have actually used a butterfly paintbox to make pictures with. Now I am going to show you some butterflies and moths (quite common ones all of them) which have queer little pictures on their wings ready made—real pictures I mean, faces and animals and things like that.

You may find it, at first, a little hard to see them, for they are puzzle pictures, like those you get in crackers, but once you have foundthe face, or whatever it may be, you won't be able to help seeing it.

I will start you with quite an easy one. Some of you, I expect, have noticed how often living creatures have a pattern on them like an open eye. This is called an "eye-marking," and is of course quite a different thing from the eye which is used for seeing with. Nearly all our butterflies have an eye-marking somewhere on their wings, and we find it in many other creatures besides butterflies. In birds, for instance (you will remember the peacock at once), and fish (next time you pass a big fishmonger's look out for a John Dory, he has a beauty) and lizards and snakes and frogs and things like that. It is not often seen on animals, though a leopard's or a jaguar's spots are something very like it.

If you look at the picture of the Emperor Moth you will see that there is a very nicely drawn eye on each of his upper wings (his real eyes are quite hidden by his little fur cape); and if you look at the caterpillar of the Elephant hawk-moth long enough, I am sureyou will think that he is looking back at you, and that he does not like the look of you much.

The Emperor Moth

Here, again, it is not his eyes that you see, but his eye-markings. In the first picture they are just where you would expect eyes to be, and I must explain to you why. He is called the "Elephant" caterpillar because the head-end of him ("head-end" sounds rather queer; but I think that if one may say "tail-end" one may say "head-end")tapers off very quickly from his fat body, and when he swings this end of him, as he often does, it looks like an elephant's trunk. You will see what I mean in the second picture.

The Elephant Hawk Moth's Caterpillar showing his Eye-markings

Now when he is frightened or angry, he tucks his head in like a telescope close up to the eye-markings, and then these look as if they are really eyes.

The Elephant Hawk-Moth's Caterpillar, showing his Trunk

Some people think, and they may be quite right, that these eye-markings frighten off birds and lizards and things like that, who would soon eat the caterpillar if they did not thinkthat his eye-markings were really eyes, and that they must have a big body behind them.

You remember the eyes as big as tea-cups in "The Little Tin Soldier"? If you have not read that, read it as quickly as you can.

Eye-markings are very easy to see, and I am sure that you will be able to find four of them on the wings of the Peacock Butterfly.

Some people think that these frighten off creatures who might eat him, just like those on the Elephant Hawk caterpillar, and some people think just the opposite—that the eye-markings are so clear a mark that the butterfly's enemies will bite atthem, and so get a mouthful of butterfly's wing, instead of the butterfly himself; which is, of course, all for the good of the butterfly.I don't think we can be quite sure that either of these reasons is true, but we may be certain that if the eye-markings were not somehow useful to the butterfly they would not be there.

The Peacock Butterfly

The upper eye-markings on the Peacock have nothing particularly curious about them, but those on the under-wings each form a clear man's face with a big moustache, whiskers, and a bald forehead. If you hold the paper a littleway off, you will see it clearly. It is something like Mr. Balfour.

This is a full-face picture, but in the other moths, the Mother Shipton and the Magpie, you will find side-face pictures. The Mother Shipton takes its name from having the face of an old witch on each of its upper wings. I will leave you to puzzle this out for yourselves, but I will give you the hint that the old witch has a hooked nose and a pointed chin.

The Magpie Moth has the side face of rather an ugly boy with a button of a nose and his mouth wide open. This is made up by themarkings of each pair of wings taken together, and can only be seen when the wings are in a certain position. I will give you a hint here, too, which will help you. The seventh spot on the border of the upper wing, counting downwards, is the boy's eye; and he has a fine head of hair.

The Mother Shipton Moth

Nearly all butterflies and moths have some kind of picture on their wings, and I think that it is nicer looking for these than looking for pictures in the fire, because, when once you have found a butterfly picture, you may be sure of finding it again, and showing it to other people.

I amgoing to talk about two animals this time—one a very big one and one a very small one. I am showing you two pictures of the small one and two of some cousins of his. He is quite the wee-est beastie in this country of ours, and nearly the wee-est beastie in all the world. He is called the Pygmy Shrewmouse, and his name, as you see it printed, is just about as long as his soft, velvet body.

I wonder how many of you know which is thelargestof our British animals? If you guess quickly you are sure to guess wrong, and so I will tell you, and then there will be no need to put you right. It is the Blue Whale.

Very few of us have ever seen a Blue Whale, or, indeed, have ever had the chance; but he comes to our northern coasts almost everysummer, and so, as he is met with in British seas, he is quite rightly called a British animal.

He does not often swim close inshore, for, if he does, he is likely to be caught by the tide, and left high and dry like a jelly-fish, which, indeed, has more than once happened.

The Blue Whales which come to this country are between seventy and eighty feet long (there is really no room to give you a picture of one) and weigh between a hundred and fifty and two hundred tons. The Pygmy Shrewmouse, tail and all, is less than three inches long and weighs about a tenth of an ounce. Now I know that measurements are difficult things for young folks to understand, so I will try to make you see the difference between these two animals of ours in a different way. I expect we all know what a lawn-tennis court looks like. Two Blue Whales would just fill a lawn-tennis court, but if we wanted to fill a lawn-tennis court with Pygmy Shrewmice, we should want five-hundred thousand of them, and if we couldlift a Blue Whale on an enormous pair of scales, and tried to balance him with Pygmy Shrewmice, we should want—how many do you think? We should want more thanseventy millionsof them.

The Common Shrewmouse, who is Half as Big Again as the Pygmy

It is wonderful to think that the wee Pygmy and the huge Whale should belong to the same Class of creatures. But it is so. Nearly all the bones in the Pygmy (some are scarcely thicker than a hair) can be matchedby the same sort of bones in the Blue Whale. If the Blue Whale were a fish (and he certainly looks like one) his bones would be quite different and quite differently arranged, and from this we know that the Whale is not a fish like a Shark, but an animal like a Seal, or a Pygmy Shrewmouse or one of ourselves.

Now we must look at the pictures. You will see at once what a long nose the Pygmy has got. This nose is very useful to him, for much of his food is tiny insects, and he pokes his nose into tiny holes after them.

You can't see his teeth in the pictures, which is a pity, for they are very curious teeth, and the front ones, instead of pointing up and down like ours do, point outwards rather, and come together like a pair of tweezers. This helps him to catch insects too, and to pull little snails out of their shells.

I don't think his teeth are strong enough to crack snail shells, but his dark-brown cousin, the Common Shrewmouse (his pictureis on page 181), cracks snail shells quite easily, and so does his black cousin, the Water Shrewmouse.

The Water Shrewmouse, who is nearly Half as Big Again as the Common Shrewmouse

What does the great Blue Whale eat, you ask? I expect you will be surprised to hear that he eats much the same kind of things as the Pygmy—small slug-like creatures, scarcely an inch long, which swarm in parts of the sea. Of course he eats barrelfuls at once.

He catches them by a wonderful arrangement in his mouth, which is made of whatwe call whalebone. It is something like the gratings across drain-pipes, which let the water through but stop everything else, and he can lift it up or drop it down as he pleases. When he is hungry, he takes a huge mouthful of sea-water and lets it out again through this whalebone grating. All the small slug-like things which are swimming in the water are trapped, and, when he has got most of the water out of his mouth, he swallows them.

The Pygmy ShrewmouseHis fur has a beautiful purple bloom, like that on a yellow plum; and is so fine that it often shows mother-of-pearl colours

I don't think that the Whale can have much trouble about getting his dinner; all he hasto do is to find the right piece of sea and then open his mouth; but the Pygmy, I think, has to work very hard, as he has to catch everything separately, and he is such a delicate little creature that he is seldom about unless the weather is warm and fine.

This is how the Pygmy coils Himself up to sleep

Then he has to make up for the hungry time when bad weather has kept him in his hole.

In the autumn one often finds dead shrewmice lying on the paths. Nobody quite knows why they die in the autumn, but I think it is because only a few of them, if any, are strong enough to stand cold and wet and hunger all at once. The rest die just like the leaves die.

You must not think a dead Shrewmouse is like a live one to look at, for he is quite different. When dead, the poor little beastie lies stretched out straight, but when he is alive he is all bunched up together and runs about like a little fur ball on legs.

Againthe Fox Cub was puzzled. His muzzle wrinkled dubiously, his ears twitched and puckered, he barked (a new accomplishment), he mewed (a newer habit still), and then, since sound proved futile, he sank from his hindquarters forward slowly, grounded his nose between his paws and stared.

This was the queerest happening of all. Queerer than the briar's queer flutter; and the shower of pink petals from it; and the glint of savage little eyes half-way up it; and the savage little chestnut face behind them. Queerer than the scream from the sky; and the rotten elm-branch dancing bough to bough; and cannoning against the trunk; and shattering at his feet. Queerer than the swish through the nettlebed—swish of a purple snaking shadow, whichmight have been mere bird, had the trail of it been clumsier, or its ripple more fretful.

Again the Fox Cub was Puzzled

Birds he had known since teething. Mother had brought them often; Father less often—scraggy, thin-necked, towsled things, yet mostly of fine flavour; finer than rabbits certainly (except quite baby rabbits); finer, too, than frogs; or lizards; or mice; or snails; or any of the myriad crawl-by-nights on which young teeth gain confidence.

The Fox Cub stared round-eyed towards the bracken. It certainly was moving—moving in waves which spent themselves abruptly, moving in spins and eddies. Now and again great swathes of it sank downward.

The Fox Cub froze to stone. His muzzle hardened; his ears drooped flat; only his tail (his brush was yet to come) twitched half in interest, half in apprehension.

The bracken started midway down the slope, in straggling, wayward patches. These quickly joined in an unbroken mass, and, on the level ground, gained full luxuriance. A cart-track twisted through them, half of it clear to eyes above, half intercepted.

Beyond, the ground crept up once more—bracken gave place to bramble, bramble to coppice, coppice to the sky.

The Fox Cub's eyes missed nothing.

Movement above he saw—the brown owl changing station. Movement upon mid-slope—the dormouse in the brambles. Movement upon the cart-track—the shrewmouse worrying snails. But these were mere diversions—theirinterest passed. The bracken furnished a besetting problem—movement inexplicable, sound inexplicable—long-drawn, wheezy breathings, snorts of exertion, sighs of content. There was scent also, heavy musted scent, which came in whiffs and dangled at his nose.

But for this scent he must have smelt the Stoat. The Stoat came dancing up the wind, passed by to right of him, and swung about. He held himself with an air, his body arched, one broad white pad uplifted, his tail curved decorously. From where he lay, the Fox Cub took his measure, then slowly reared himself and yawned. He, too, had teeth to show.

The Stoat's black tail twitched side to side. He met the challenge squarely. The Fox Cub sank full length again. The Stoat tiptoed towards him, and, stretching full-neck forward, nibbled at his fur. So was their peace established.

"Badger," whispered the Stoat, and danced from point to point excitedly, "Badger, grub-grub-grubbing."

HE SANK FROM HIS HINDQUARTERS FORWARD SLOWLY, GROUNDED HIS NOSE BETWEEN HIS PAWS AND STARED

A stunted patch of bracken burst apart, and from its cover lurched a broad grey back.

"He scents you," said the Stoat.

The Fox Cub still lay motionless. It was the broadest back he yet had seen.

"Should one run?" he whispered. This spelt sheer ignorance of the woods.

"Run?" said the Stoat. "Whoever ran from Badger but a rabbit? Badger is all benevolence. Badger is King. We run towards him."

"Who areWe?" said the Fox Cub.

"We?" said the Stoat. "Why, Marten, Polecat, Stoat, and Weasel. Flesh-eaters All. All of one Brotherhood. Beasties Courageous. Squirrel is living up to us—he does his best with eggs."

"Squirrel is living up to us?" It was a cough and splutter from above and Stoat and Cub peered upwards. Squirrel sat twenty feet away, and stamped with indignation. "Squirrel is living up to us? My plumed tail! you wait till Squirrel grows."

The Stoat tiptoed towards Him

"Never mind him," said the Stoat, "he's silly."

The broad grey back had swung about, and Badger's head was lifted. Slowly it swayed from side to side, slowly it nodded.

"Where are his eyes?" whispered the Fox Cub.

"In his head," chuckled the Stoat.

"His head's a puzzle," said the Fox Cub—which, indeed, it was. Seen from above, andswinging to and fro, its clean-cut symmetries of black and white foreshortened in confusion.

"Wait till he fronts you," said the Stoat, and presently this happened. The head stopped motionless. A broad white stripe divided it; on either side were triangles of black; beneath was white again, and white tricked out the outline of each ear.

"He's black beneath," said the Stoat, "and grey behind—now you can see him."

Badger had backed a pace or two and craned his neck to snuffle. Ebon-chested he was and ebon-footed.

"Still I can't see his eyes," muttered the Fox Cub, but, even as he spoke, he saw them—steadfast, watchful, gimlet eyes, as black as their black setting.

"And now weallhave seen you," said the Stoat. "Marten has seen you; Polecat has seen you; Weasel has seen you; I have seen you; and Badger has seen you. Fox Cub, you yet have much to learn in stealth. Go, make your peace with Badger."

"What have I done?" said the Fox Cub.

"You've come unasked," said the Stoat.

"I was brought," said the Fox Cub.

"That makes no difference," said the Stoat. "The wood belongs to US!"

"US!US!us!" the hillside caught the echo of it, and filled with sibilant voices.

"My plumed tail! You wait till Squirrel grows." "Never Mind Him," said the Stoat, "He's Silly"

"US-S-S-S-s-s!" it was the Stoat departing.

"US-S!" screamed the Squirrel, boldly, from his branch.

"You?" sneered the Fox Cub. "You simian rat! You fuzz-tailed, fish-eyed rabbit! Think of your teeth next time you wash your face."

The Squirrel stamped and spat at him. "Wait till I grow," he spluttered. "Wait till my head's as big as yours. Wait till I give up nuts."

"Oh, do be quiet," said the Cub. "I want to think."

"It might be worth my while," he mused. "Ilikethis wood."

Badger was grunting softly to himself. His head still swayed and nodded. Now and again he scratched the ground before him. The Fox Cub rose up cautiously, and sat back on his haunches. He saw the whole of Badger now, the iron-grey back, the magpie head, the stumpy tarbrush tail.

He stole two stealthy paces down the slope, but checked as Badger squared himself. Two paces more—and Badger ducked his head, and charged full drive uphill at him.

The Fox Cub bolted straightway, turned sharp upon the hill-crest, ran half the length of it, slid headlong down the sand-cliff (the stones rattling about him), followed the ride for fifty yards, swung sharply to the right, and so, by some strange instinct, reached the gorse-clump.

Marten has seen You

He was quite badly scared. His tongue lolled dripping from his mouth; his sides heaved painfully; he felt that, come what may, he mustlie down. So he squirmed, eel-like, underneath the furze, twisted himself about, and, with his head thrust outwards, snuffed and listened. He had outdistanced Badger—of that he soon assured himself. Yet there was something watching him, something whose curious stare he felt. His eyes ranged anxiously from point to point, dwelt on each tuft and hummock in the grass, dwelt long upon a jerking patch of moss, which in due course revealed a white-legged mouse, and in the end cast upwards.

Above him stretched a leafless branch of elm, and on its clean-cut, fretted edge a moving blur intruded—a blur which swelled and shrunk in steady rhythm, and twitched and wriggled forward in short jerks, so closely welded to the bark, so neatly matched in hue to it, that, but for movement, it had cheated sight.

The Fox Cub watched it furtively, his yellow eyes upturned. It checked, and from the end of it dropped a soft feathery plume, and hung and dangled lightly. Its lines were unmistakable,it was a tail. Then, as the Fox Cub gazed, the head took shape—a flat-browed, taper-muzzled head, with shimmery velvet eyes, which seemed to look beyond as well as at him.

Such was the Marten couched. Their eyes met, and he saw her rampant. She leapt from where she lay to where, six feet above, the branch forked double. Astride on this, her forefeet on the upper arm, her hind-feet on the lower, she faced about and screamed—

"Ai-yah-ai-ee! Ai-yah-ai-ee! A Fox! A Fox!"

The scream dropped to a whine, then to a bleat—"Huh-huh-huh-huh! Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh!"—then swelled into a scream again.

Out leapt the Fox Cub, impudent, and faced the music.

"The last part again, Marten," he cried. "Oh,please, the last part again!"

The Marten stared, mouth open "A cub!" she gasped; "not even a grown fox—a woolly, blunt-nosed cub."

"Do you know where you are?" she added, shortly.

"Yes, I do," said the Fox Cub. "The wood belongs to US. Marten and Polecat, Stoat and Weasel. Flesh-eaters All. All of one Brotherhood. Beasties Courageous. I hope I've got that right—and you all kow-tow to Badger."

"And where doyoucome in?" said the Marten grimly. His coolness took her fancy.

"The first good roomy hole I find," said the Fox Cub. "I like this wood and in this wood I'll stop."

"Huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh-huh," said the Marten.

"Quite so," said the Fox Cub.

The Marten snuggled down, her eyes a-twinkle.

"I know exactly the kind of hole you'd like," she said.

"Where's that?" said the Fox Cub.

"Listen to me carefully," said the Marten, "and you can't miss it. You know where the holm oak is—of course you don't. Look here.Get back on to the ride and follow that. It leads you to a hollow."

"It leads two ways," said the Fox Cub.

"You go downhill to the hollow," said the Marten, gently. "Right at the bottom you will find an oak-stump, and if you look inside it (which I don't advise), you will find a family of Polecats."

And perhaps you will be good enough to get higher up the Tree, while I come underneath

"Polecats?" said the Fox Cub.

"Yes, Polecats," said the Marten.

"Turn up to the left at the stump, and make for the silver birch at the top of the rise. The hole is close by that."

"Much obliged," said the Fox Cub, "and perhaps you will be good enough to get higher up the tree, while I come underneath."

"Certainly," said the Marten. From twig to twig she sprang, so daintily, so airily, that a mere flutter signalled her ascent.

"Will this do?" cried she from the topmost branch. Her forefeet hung on its extremity; her hind-feet curved and dangled; her tail twitched underneath her.

"That will do," said the Fox Cub. Before the words were spoken he was past the tree; before the Marten reached the ground he gained his stride, which was good going. The Marten checked at twenty yards. "I've done my share," she said, and sauntered up the tree again.

The Fox Cub quickly hit the ride, noted its slope, and keeping close in touch with it, slunk velvet-footed through the abutting cover. His pads dropped soft as thistle-down, he scarcely stirred a leaf, and yet the weasel, nosing in the brambles, got wind of him andsqueaked. She was a five-inch weasel, too small to check his progress, yet large enough for mischief. Should she be silenced? He swung about—the scent of her still lingered—and in a moment he was on her trail. Three bounds and he had sighted her. She shot beneath a bramble-patch, issued where he had least foreseen, and tricked him in a maze of straggling roots. He worked back, sulky-faced, towards the ride, but checked ten paces from the oak-stump. Its tenant sat upon it—the purple, snaking, whiplash thing which had perplexed him earlier. Now he saw head to tail of it. The white-rimmed ears, the ochre-banded forehead, the bold eyes, spectacled with brown, the coarse brown-purple body-fur flecked here and there with streaks of shimmery buff—all these he took quiet note of, and presently saw many aspects of them.

The Marten had been right. The Polecat's mate came sneaking from the hollow, and closebehind her squirmed four red-brown cubs, loose-jointed yet, but muscular, whimpering pettishly, mauling each other as they ran.

Six Polecats knit by kinship! it was too much for one Fox Cub to face. He cast wide off to right of them, and, creeping quietly round again, regained the ride to leeward. Here it cut through rough coppice. The western slope was thickly wooded, low bushes mostly, chestnut, birch, and hazel, yet high enough to screen what lay beyond. He started to explore the upper ground. At first the incline was easy, but half way up it steepened to a cliff. Coppice gave place to grass and briar, and these in turn to gorse and slithery sand. By slow degrees he zigzagged to the summit, faced round, and scanned the depths which he had left. The oak stump stood out clear against the ride, and, on his right, two hundred yards away, he marked the silver birch. He scrambled down to grass again, and, travelling quickly on mid-slope, found what he sought within two minutes.

Viewed from below—it opened near the skyline—thehole seemed promising enough. It was a spacious sheltered hole, almost a cavern—the depths of it ink-black, the entrance to it jagged and arching. The Fox Cub stole up cautiously and stopped dead on its threshold. Something was in possession, something which split the darkened void in three; something which crept out slowly from the black, first shadowy grey, then white—a clean-cutfleur-de-lysof white.

It was another Badger.

The Fox Cub leapt back sideways, but even so she caught him. She came out (thirty pounds of her) full charge, and caught him low. The attacking badger tosses like a bull, trusting to weight and side-swing of the shoulders. He somersaulted twice. The Badger held straight on her course and disappeared downhill.

The Fox Cub slowly pulled himself together. Had he been bitten? Bruised he was all over, and sick, and giddy; and so, the hole being there, he crept within it, and crawled downthe main shaft for fifteen yards, and took one of four turnings, and followed this until it forked, and then chose the right gallery, and so attained the nest. Rather the haystack, for the making of it had almost stripped an acre. Bracken there was, and bent-grass, thyme and clover, arum stalk and bluebell, thick swathes of them inextricably tangled, bedding enough for twenty half-grown cubs.

There was food also. He found a rabbit's leg at once, then a stiff mummied frog, then half a snake. He made a closer search, and found more rabbit. Each find he sampled. Most of them he gulped, but some he buried carefully for seasoning, scraping small hollows to receive them, and plastering earth upon them with his nose. This done, he coiled himself up tight, and for five minutes dozed with wakeful ears. Thirst brought him to his feet again; thirst and a sense of danger. Clearly this was the Badger's hole—he owed that Marten something. The hole had a main entrance. From this a single shaft led fifteen yards, but then it split, and smaller tunnels joined it, tunnels which mightend blind. Badgers no doubt were most benevolent, but Badgers seem to charge at sight, and tunnels were poor places to be charged in. The last reflection scared him back to sense. He would be cornered hopelessly, would not know which of twenty turns to take. That settled it. To wait for them was madness. He must go.

It was another Badger

He reached the entrance without accident, anddropped soft-footed down the slope. A puddle on the ride was in his mind—a puddle just beyond the Polecat's stump. He reached this safely also, stooped down his head, and lapped his fill.

The wood was oddly silent. Dark clouds had massed low in the sky and streamed to either side, outflanking it. Beneath their dreary shadow the green and russet of the trees faded to lifeless grey. The grass-blades stood up stiffly; the leaves hung stiffly downwards. All that was weatherwise was taking cover. Down from the summit of the ride came the two Badgers, bumping. They travelled leisurely.

First He would root an arum up (a flick with one fore-paw), and She would place her paw where his had been. Then He would stretch tiptoe against an oak, and She would do the same. Then He would wheel sharp right or left, and She would follow like a truck.

SHE CAME OUT FULL CHARGE

The Cub had time to entrench himself securely. He chose the summit of the Polecat's stump, and from it watched the pair of them bump past. They quickened as they faced the rise, andgrunted to each other; then, with their heads down, sped in line uphill.

And with their going came the rain.

It spattered in large warning drops, then swished in sheets. Even before the thunder-peals, and rattle of fierce hail, the stump became untenable. The Fox Cub scrambled down from it, headed a dozen different ways, and, in the end, grown desperate, pursued the retreating Badgers. He caught them as they reached the hole, and saw them topple down it. He gave them half a minute's grace and toppled after.

And in due course of Time, His Wife

What happened next? That I can only guess at. Perhaps there was a Fox Cub course for dinner; perhaps (and this, I think, is likeliest) the Badgers took small notice of his entry. They may have even welcomed him, and, in due course of time, his wife.

The Lobster MothCaterpillarPretending to be a Spider

Thewolves and sheep I am going to talk about are all of them insects, or rather all of them but one, for scientific people do not allow us to call spiders insects. Insects have six legs and six legs only, while spiders and mites and those sort of people have eight, and there are a great many other differences between spiders and true insects which would make it quite a dreadful blunder to put them in the same case in the Museum, or to speak of them in the same breath when you know you are talking to clever people.

The Spider, as you might guess, is one ofthe Wolves, and so is the Dragon in the Water-weed, who turns into one of our largest dragon flies, if he is lucky; while the caterpillars and the Giant Wood Wasp are just silly harmless sheep.

Have you ever thought of the wonderful struggles which are always going on in the insect world—the struggles to eat, and the struggles not to be eaten? Nearly all insects seem to be the food for something or other. Most animals enjoy them thoroughly, so do many birds, and many reptiles and amphibians (frogs and toads) and many fish. I think that spiders live on them entirely, and they have also cannibals to fear among their own kind, for though most insects feed on plant-juice, quite a large number of them turn to stronger meat, and spend their lives in hunting their poor relations. It sounds rather horrible, doesn't it? But we may be quite sure that everything of the kind has been mercifully arranged so that this beautiful world of ours, with all its joy and colour, and its millions and millions of happy children—Ido not think that any lives but those of human beings are ever really unhappy—may keep its beauty always. That is why the ichneumon flies have to kill down the caterpillars, for, if there were too many caterpillars, there would be no hedgerows, let alone vegetables for dinner; and the Rove Beetles, who have curly cock-up tails, have to kill down the little boring beetles, for, if there were too many little boring beetles there would be no trees; and the Crabros have to kill down the blue-bottles, for if there were too many blue-bottles—well, goodness knows whatwouldhappen to some excitable people.

We must believe then that things are best as they are—that a struggle for life is part of a Great Plan, Greater than our human minds can grasp, and that the lives of the hunters are as useful in their way as the lives of the hunted.

Now how would we ourselves act, if our lives depended on catching things? And how would we act if our lives depended on not being caught? I don't think we could addmuch to what the insects and spiders have taught us. To hunt successfully you must get so near to your quarry that you can kill it. If you are quicker-footed, well and good. If you are slower-footed you may employ something quicker-footed than yourself—this is what happens in fox-hunting; or you may approach without being seen—this is what happens in deer-stalking: or you may hide yourself and wait for your quarry to approach you—this is what happens in tiger-shooting; or, lastly, you may employ traps and snares, which is how most fishing is done. I don't think that any creatures but ourselves employ lower creatures to hunt for them, but the other ways are used by all sorts of animals, and the last two are used more skilfully by insects and spiders than by anything else.

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