August 13—Yesterday I lay out cliff and with the aid of field glasses Managed to watch quite intimately the fishing of a cormorant: having often watched the tame birds fishing creeks near Shanghai, I soon noted. that the technique of the wild bird fishing in rifled sea differs considerably. "In clear fresh water the tame pieds dive more or less at the word of command, and find their fish by sight when they are under water; the fish are practically herded into position by the noise of the boats, so the birds can hardly miss" a catch: in the sea, the bird must first sight his fish and then pursue it......and this is what he Goes: having come toa likely spot) while swimming on the surface, he first puts his head under water a swims forward in this position until he sights his prey, then dives sudden-and pursues it; he can apparently remain immersed for nearly a minute, so if he does not "get a view" well within this time his head comes Up to breathe before he starts again. The whole process is quite' fogieal and ingenious, for it must be remembered that neither bird nor! man can. see through ruted water except from a considerable height. Now, if you are at the seaside in. Northern China or Japan, you may gazing idly seaward "from the Beach and notice something. Tike, 9
Shore: and a few minutes later find that your rock has moved; you think. of last night's lobster supper and wonder if you are "seeing things": then somebody "informs you that local fishermen walk out and immerse their heads in a glass-bottomed bucket to enable them to see spear crabs or fish which lurk in the sands: 80 you say "Aren't these people felever?" But you forget that the Cormorant has been doing the same thing (without the bucket) probably ever since he developed from a sea-snake into a bird! Are'n't these birds August 15—If you are trying to grow fruit trees you will soon find that you are opposed by a veritable rms" of insect pests whose. Union fas' passed a resolution that your efforts shall be balked" moths, Bectfen borers, calerpillers, trid. bugs of many hues. nines tu their desire. defeat fangs creatures T have at last found yet_ among all this host 0
tone which i on my side. T refer to that lite friend of my youth generally. known asthe 'Lady bird. Just tow I'find many of the apple-tree Tnaves plastered with green-ly ets trid "ladybieds.fiting irom freet tree performing their noble duly: It'one settles on me T gently send it jon ite way; and' remembering. the Drecepus of my youth, say as it goes Taaybied, Iya ly any Your hot your children tre gone All except one—and her name is Ann, She hud under ie frying pant Exactly what all this means I don't know but it is apparent that the object is to teach kindness to ladybirds in' view of services rendered: for not only does the ladybird feat Up. green-fiies as fast as she can, but she has the excellent plan of laying her eggs among those of the plantlice; so when the ladybird larva hatches out, all he has to do is to start chewing up the good food around him; and the young Aphides (poor boobs!) cannot even move, being stuck to the leaf by the pro-hosels!' And when the Aphides have Tearnt to fly and move off in search lof new feeding-grounds, the grownup ladybirds migrate with them and continue the good work started in the larval stage. So it is no wonder that men thought of such a pretty name as Ladybird to give this useful creature....yet in some parts of England they are known as "Lady-cow"
(in the country from which I hail) as "Cush-cow": but Hush! this gets about there won't be a ladybird left in my orchard!
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.