CHAPTER VIII.

Hampshire, north and south--A spot abounding in life--Lyndhurst--A white spider--Wooing spider's antics--A New Forest little boy--Blonde gipsies--The boy and the spider--A distant world of spiders--Selborne and its visitors--Selborne revisited--An owl at Alton--A wagtail at the Wakes--The cockerel and the martin--Heat at Selborne--House crickets--Gilbert White on crickets--A colony of field crickets--Water plants--Musk mallow--Girl buntings at Selborne--Evening gatherings of swifts at Selborne--Locustidæ--Thamnotrizon cinereus--English names wanted--Black grasshopper's habits and disposition--Its abundance at Selborne.