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 wi