It is still more important outside the poultry-yard. Any who is a sportsman, and knows the value of the Red-legged Patridge, the glory of our southern hills, should open the crop of the bird he has just shot. He will find it, nine times out of ten, more or less crammed with Locusts. The Partridge dotes on them, preferring them to seeds as long as he can catch them. This highly-flavoured, nourishing fare would almost make him forget the existence of seeds, if it were only there all the year round. The Wheat-ear, too, who is so good to eat, prefers the Locust to any other food. And all the little birds of passage which, when autumn comes, call a halt in Provence before their great pilgrimage, fatten themselves with Locusts as a preparation for the journey. Nor does man himself scorn them. An Arab author tells us: “Grasshoppers”—(he means Locusts)—“are of good nourishment for men and Camels. Their claws, wings, and head are taken away, and they are eaten fresh or dried, either roast or boiled, and served with flesh, flour, and herbs. ”... Camels eat them greedily, and are given them dried or roast, heaped in a hollow between two layers of charcoal. Thus also do the Nubians eat them.... “Once, when the Caliph Omar was asked if it were lawful to eat Grasshoppers, he made answer: ”’Would that I had a basket of them to eat.’ “Wherefore, from this testimony, it is very sure that, by the Grace of God, Grasshoppers were given to man for his nourishment.” Without going as far as the Arab I feel prepared to say that the Locust is a gift of God to a multitude of birds. Reptiles also hold him in esteem. I have found him in the stomach of the Eyed Lizard, and have often caught the little Grey Lizard of the walls in the act of carrying him off. Even the fish revel in him, when good fortune brings him to them. The Locust leaps blindly, and without definite aim: he comes down wherever he is shot by the springs in his legs. If the place where he falls happens to be water, a fish gobbles him up at once. Anglers sometimes bait their hooks with a specially attractive Locust. As for his being fit nourishment for man, except in the form of Partridge and young Turkey, I am a little doubtful. Omar, the mighty Caliph who destroyed the library of Alexandria, wished for a basket of Locusts, it is true, but his digestion was evidently better than his brains. Long before his day St. John the Baptist lived in the desert on Locusts and wild honey; but in his case they were not eaten because they were good. Wild honey from the pots of the Mason-bees is very agreeable food, I know. Wishing to taste the Locust also I once caught some, and had them cooked as the Arab author advised. We all of us, big and little, tried the queer dish at dinner. It was much nicer than the Cicadæ praised by Aristotle. I would go to the length of saying it is good—without, however, feeling any desire for more. II THEIR MUSICAL TALENT