CHAPTER XXIV.

THE PLEASURES OF A COUNTRY LIFE FROM

A NATURAL HISTORY POINT OF VIEW.

BY W. H. HARRIS, B.A., B.Sc. (London University),

Author of "The Honey Bee: Its Nature, Homes, and Products"; Writer of various Natural History Articles in the " Boys' Own Paper," the "Girls' Own Paper," “A 1,” and “ Nature Notes”; Member of the Committee of the British Bee-Keepers' Association; Member of the Council of the College of Preceptors; &c.

No account of the enjoyment of living in the country would be complete without some mention of the pleasures derivable from natural history. As a matter of fact, it is astonishing how very little is known on this subject by those who have spent all their lives in rural scenes. Many of them may have kept poultry, and rabbits, and bees, but have next to no information as to the structure, the habits, instincts and intelligence of even these domesticated creatures. Yet there are large numbers of most interesting observations to be made, and facts to be learned about them. But when we come to nondomesticated animals, vertebrate and invertebrate, the ignorance of people living in the country can only be accounted for by their having never been taught what there is to be known, and by their attention never having been directed to observation of and reflection on the wonders they might find all around them.

It may be well to give a few simple illustrations of these remarks. Let us take such an every-day matter as the recognition of common birds. We do not hesitate

to say that comparatively few people, who are not farmers, can distinguish one bird from another by its flight, its motion on the ground, or even by its general appearance and plumage. Swifts, swallows, and martins seem to many persons quite alike. Carrion-crows, rooks, ravens and jackdaws are included under the general term "crows," and great would be the surprise of many ladies, at all events, to be told that probably they have never seen a real live crow. Then missel-thrushes, songthrushes, redwings and fieldfares, are to most people not individually recognizable. Which of these are migrants, and under what circumstances, is quite unknown to many country people. Starlings and blackbirds are confounded with one another, notwithstanding marked differences. The song of the lark may be familiar, but the hedgesparrow, the wren, the black-cap, the garden warbler, would be undistinguishable by their notes. Then to go to other divisions of living creatures, "butterfly" and "moth" seem interchangeable terms; black-beetles and cockroaches are constantly considered to be the same things; dragon-flies and horse-stingers (so-called) are dreaded as more or less noxious, if not terrible insects. It is supposed that all spiders spin webs, that all bees, and wasps, and ants have, as their one object in life, to sting human beings. And so we might continue our illustrations. But enough has been said to show that people, who might be expected to have acquaintance with the most common creatures, are ignorant of them to a wonderful degree. We are, however, concerned rather to show not simply what is and ought to be known, but how much enjoyment of a highly intellectual kind is derivable from natural history knowledge.

Reverting now to poultry, rabbits, and bees, we could suggest dozens of observations to be made, full of

interest and pleasure. The rearing of chicken, the variety of their breeds, the changes of plumage, the general development of characteristic features, will occupy agreeably many a spare half-hour. The raising of ducks -their rapid growth, their mad gambols in the water at one time, their sedate waddle in single file at another; the grazing of geese, and how they manage it; the wanderings and flights of guinea-fowl, are all worthy of attention. Pigeons, again, with their great beauties of plumage, their differences in size and shape, in form of the head, length of beak, and development of what we might term vagaries of feathering, added to their swiftness in flight, their homing faculty, their ready tameness, the nesting of both old birds and their united care for the young, present ever fresh subjects for mental diversion and thought.

Then, again, when it is once learnt that bees are not perpetually seeking to sting, and that most people may, with quiet movement, approach hives and watch the busy workers with impunity, there is constant opportunity for noting many extraordinary facts relating to these insects. How few persons, for instance, know the mistakes in the old nursery-hymn beginning:

"How doth the little busy bee

Improve each shining hour,

And gather honey all the day

From every opening flower!"

the errors being-first, that neither do bees in general visit all blossoms of trees and plants; and secondly, that an individual bee does not wander from one kind of flower to another kind in honey-gathering, but confines itself during each particular journey to flowers of the same species. Again, how constantly one hears the exclamation from people who are watching the workers

enter the hive, with thighs laden with pollen, "What a quantity of wax they are carrying in!" and so on, to much further extent, persons display their ignorance. But when, by dint of observation and reading, people have mastered the elementary facts of bee-keeping, they find true what a French writer has said of these insects, "On n'aime pas les abeilles; on se passionne d'eux."

But it may be said that residence in the country is unnecessary for gaining acquaintance with natural history facts. To a limited extent, of course, this is true. Books of so-called popular science abound, and museums of greater or less excellence are to be met with in many places; but these can never supply either the accurate information, or yield half the pleasure to be derived from seeing for ourselves what others have described. Knowledge gained at first-hand has perennial and untold sweetness, and the humanising and elevating effect of such acquirement adds vastly to its value.

Again, it may be objected that people must have definite training and instruction to make progress worthy the name in natural history pursuits. This again is a statement partly true. It has, indeed, been well remarked that "The eye sees only what it has been trained to see"; but the training may be by our own initiative. The only condition for our getting this sort of knowledge is that we look and observe for ourselves, instead of depending on what other people have discovered or seen. The old school-boy story of "Eyes and no eyes" well deserves to be read and taken to heart by thousands, not only of our young people, but of "grown-ups" also. It is indeed wonderful how many persons "seeing, see not, and hearing, do not understand" a hundredth part of the wonders and glories of God's works spread round them with royal and even lavish hand.

And now by way of fuller illustration of the points we have been urging, we will refer in some detail to a few members of the animal kingdom to be met with in any rural district, and without making pretensions to any sort of treatise on the natural history of the specimens taken, we will sketch, as mere samples, facts of interest connected with them.

Let us mention first the beautiful butterfly-or as we may render it 'in "portmanteau " English- "flutterby" tribe of insects. Is it their loveliness, their inviting style of flight, their hovering near the ground, or all combined, which seems irresistibly to impel us, when children, to run after them, to try to catch them. Shakespeare pictures Coriolanus's little boy behaving just like a nineteenth century youngster. "I saw him run after a gilded butterfly; and when he caught it, he let it go again; and after it again; and over and over he comes, and up again ; catched it again; or whether his fall enraged him, or how t'was, he did so set his teeth and tear it." Do we not all, at least those who have been boys, remember how we, too, did it? But when we grew a little older our chase and capture was only for the sake of securing specimens for our cabinet, and possibly many of us may have advanced to the much higher stage of contenting ourselves with simple observation of the habits, the haunts, and the beauties of these glorious creatures. The homely maid-like whites, the noble peacocks, the gorgeous admirals, the sombre meadow-browns, the active tortoiseshells, the speckled fritillaries, the azure blues, the early sulphurs, and occasionally the rare prize of a "Camberwell beauty," with a score of others, afford ceaseless pleasure on a summer-day, wherever the thyme, the marjoram, the lavender, and the balm abound in gardens, or the wild species of our labiatæ grow freely in the