Lady Susan by Jane Austen

Has anyone else read this? I thought I'd read all her stuff, but I found this on one of the free ebook sites. It's short - could be read at on sitting - and really good.

I do love my kindle.

I've just started re-reading Robinson Crusoe, downloaded for free on my kindle. It was the first book I read that did not have pictures. I was only 8 at the time and I bought it from Boots for 7/6 - which was a lot of money for a little girl. One of the Oxford Classics series. They were wonderful books. Well made all hardback with a dust jacket. Why don't they make books like that any more?

Well I'm amazed at myself to think I read this at that age. I'm sure I couldn't have understood all the religious agonising he went through, but still a very good read.

Very dark Bombus terrestris queen

Yesterday I saw what I thought was the first Bombus lapidarius in my garden - I'd seen a couple of others at the edge of the wood, but non in the garden. Anyway she was bigger, or rather fatter than normal, so I went to have a look. She was huge! But her tail was not the usual red, but a dirty brown, and just the very tip. Then I had a better look. She was actually a Bombus terrestris queen. The yellow stripe on the thorax was completely missing, but this is not so unusual as it can be very faint in terrestris, or dirty and covered in dust and soil. But usually the abdominal yellow band is there even if it is a darker dirty yellow, but this one had none. What she did have as she moved into the sun was a sort of sheen of dark ginger/blackish hairs where the yellow abdominal band would be. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera so I couldn't photograph her. It wasn't pollen, or anything else because when she moved into the sun I could get a good look at the hairs with the sun shining through them, and she was clean.

Has anyone else seen this?

I've never seen such a dark terrestris in all the years I've been watching bumblebees. Perhaps she was just a mutant. She was large, and otherwise seemed perfectly normal feeding off an ornamental currant bush.

smaller format free ebooks

Well, it can't be said that I don't listen. I've reformatted the free ebooks to have a smaller page size so that they are easier to read on small screens. So now there are 2 versions of each ebook on the downloads page.

This probably would not have happened if I had a lovely iphone or similar. The trouble is I hardly use my mobile phone, so can't justify the expense. What I need is a gadget that can be used for surfing the internet, reading books, listening to music - doing everything but phoning. If it could also make coffee I would pay big money for it, but perhaps I'm asking too much.

The Northern spinach

Just added this image of the Northern spinach to the page with the other Geometridae moths. I have no idea where it got the strange common name. I took the photograph last August. I'd seen the moth a few times, but could never get a photograph of it. In the end I caught it and took it home to photograph, then put it back when I next took the dog out.

I couldn't identify it from the photographs I'd taken, and thought no more about ti, but then I was reading a book about woodland insects, and came across its photograph. So at last I could put a name to it.
Me and my kindle

Well I do love my kindle. Especially as I can get loads of old classics for free. I'm discovering books I've never read, but should have, and wonder why I have got to this great age without reading. Just finished The moorland cottage by Elizabeth Gaskell - a great bedtime read. And I have discovered E F Benson - I know probably everyone else has read his/her books, but I just finished Miss Mapp. It was hilarious, so I'll read the rest of them when I get the chance.

There must be thousands like me out there reading classics that they've never read before. Perhaps that is one of the best things about the kindle.

Different shapes of butterfly scale

Just added this drawing of many of the different type of butterfly and moth scale to the main Lepidoptera page. I could see from photographs that not all scales were the same shape, but I didn't realise that there were so many different kinds. Quite amazing.

So the middle east and north Africa are in turmoil and I am messing about with butterfly scales, and downloading free books on to my Kindle. The world is a strange place, and I feel totally out of it. I read, I walk my dog, I do the garden. The most exciting recent event is the annual snowdrop show of strength as they heave their way up through frozen ground and ice, then present a nodding fragile flower for me to marvel at.