Nat the Naturalist | Page 6

up; "what were you
doing?"
"Only playing at tiger-hunting, aunt," I said.
"With my poor darling Buzzy! Come to its own mistress then, Buzzy,"
she cried pityingly. "Did the wicked, cruel boy--oh dear!"
Wur-r-ur! spit, spit!
That was Buzzy's reply to his mistress's attempt to take him from my
shoulder, and he made an attempt to scratch.
"And he used to be as gentle as a lamb," cried my aunt. "You wicked,
wicked boy, you must have hurt my darling terribly to make him so
angry with his mistress whom he loves."
I protested that I had not, but it was of no use, and I was in great
disgrace for some days; but Aunt Sophia forgot to confiscate my
crossbow.
The scolding I received ought to have had more effect upon me, but it
did not; for it was only a week afterwards that I was again in disgrace,
and for the same fault, only with this difference, that in my fancy the
garden had become a South African desert, and Nap was the lion I was
engaged in hunting.
I did him no harm, I am sure, but a great deal of good, with the
exercise; and the way in which he entered into the sport delighted me.
He charged me and dashed after me when I fled; when I hid behind

trees to shoot at him he seized the arrows, if they hit him, and worried
them fiercely; while whenever they missed him, in place of dashing at
me he would run after the arrows and bring them in his mouth to where
he thought I was hiding.
I don't think Nap had any more sense than dogs have in general, but he
would often escape from my aunt when I came home from school, and
run before me to the big cupboard where I kept my treasures, raise
himself upon his hind-legs, and tear at the door till I opened it and took
out the crossbow, when he would frisk round and round in the highest
state of delight, running out into the garden, dashing back, running out
again, and entering into the spirit of the game with as much pleasure as
I did.
But the fun to be got out of a crossbow gets wearisome after a time,
especially when you find that in spite of a great deal of practice it is
very hard to hit anything that is at all small.
The time glided on, and I was very happy still with my uncle; but
somehow Aunt Sophia seemed to take quite a dislike to me; and no
matter how I tried to do what was right, and to follow out my uncle's
wishes, I was always in trouble about something or another.
One summer Uncle Joseph bought me a book on butterflies, with
coloured plates, which so interested me that I began collecting the very
next day, and captured a large cabbage butterfly.
No great rarity this, but it was a beginning; and after pinning it out as
well as I could I began to think of a cabinet, collecting-boxes, a net,
and a packet of entomological pins.
I only had to tell Uncle Joseph my wants and he was eager to help me.
"Collecting-boxes, Nat?" he said, rubbing his hands softly; "why, I
used to use pill-boxes when I was a boy: there are lots up-stairs."
He hunted me out over a dozen that afternoon, and supplied me with an
old drawer and a piece of camphor, entering into the matter with as

much zest as I did myself. Then he obtained an old green gauze veil
from my aunt, and set to work with me in the tool-house to make a net,
after the completion of which necessity he proposed that we should go
the very next afternoon as far as Clapham Common to capture insects.
He did not go with me, for my aunt wanted him to hold skeins of wool
for her to wind, but he made up to me for the disappointment that
evening by sitting by me while I pinned out my few but far from rare
captures, taking great pleasure in holding the pins for me, and praising
what he called my cleverness in cutting out pieces of card.
I did not know anything till it came quite as a surprise, and it was
smuggled into the house so that my aunt did not know, Jane, according
to uncle's orders, carrying it up to my bedroom.
It was a large butterfly-case, made to open out in two halves like a
backgammon board; and in this, as soon as they were dry, I used to pin
my specimens, examining them with delight, and never seeming to
weary of noting the various markings, finding out their names, and
numbering