As you walk by the hedge-side a strange noise suddenly arrests your attention; it is the buzz of an insect, but loud enough to startle you; it might be mistaken for the reeling of a nightjar, but is perhaps more like the jarring hum of a fast-driven motor-car. The reason of the noise is that the beetle has with great pains climbed up a certain height from the ground, and, in order to ascertain whether he has got far enough, he erects himself on his stand, lifts his wing-cases, shakes out his wings, and begins to agitate them violently, turning this way and that to make sure that he has a clear space. If he then attempts to fly--it is one of his common blunders--he instantly strikes against some branch or cluster of leaves, and is thrown down. The tumble does not hurt him in the least, but so greatly astonishes him that he remains motionless a good while; then recovering his senses, he begins to ascend again. At length, after a good many accidents and adventures by the way, he gets to a topmost twig, and, after some buzzing to get up steam, launches himself heavily on the air and goes away in grand style. Hugh Miller, in his autobiography, tells of the discovery he made of a curiously striking resemblance in shape between our most elegantly made carriages and the bodies of wasps, the resemblance being {71} heightened by a similarity of colouring seen in the lines and bands of vivid yellows and reds on a polished black ground. This likeness between insect and carriage does not appear so striking at this day owing to a change in the fashion towards a more sombre colour in the vehicles; their funeral blacks, dark blues, and greens being now seldom relieved with bright yellows and reds. The stag-beetle, too, when he goes away with heavy flight always gives one the idea of some kind of machine or vehicle, not like the aerial phaeton of the wasp or hornet, with its graceful lines and strongly-contrasted colours, but an oblong, ponderous, armour-plated car, furnished with a beak, and painted a deep uniform brown. Birds, especially the more aerial insectivorous kinds, have the habit of flying at and teasing any odd or grotesque-looking creature they may see on the wing--as a bat, for instance. I have seen small birds dart at a passing stag, but on coming near they turn tail and fly from him, frightened perhaps at his formidable appearance and loud noise.