he is of so impatient and irritable a temper
that he will impute the fault to you, and give
you a bite—an awfully venomous bite it is,
too.

It is, however, impossible to enumerate one's
entomological opportunities, whether when
sitting within the southern mansion, or inhaling
the perfume of trailing and festooned roses
upon the piazza. While the microscope is
revealing to delighted eyes the wonderful apparatus
by which the handsome " yellow jacket"
carves one's skin, other delights, large and
small, will hover round, or settle on one's cuff,
especially in the shape of lovely little gem-like
creatures which are simply beautiful, and as
innocent as beauty should be. Plenty of these
will come, quiet, graceful, pellucid—elegant
insects, of every colour, whose entire organism is
discernible through the transparent membrane
which we call its skin—a heart, or lungs, or some
strange digestive apparatus of two simple
longitudinal serrated valves, palpitating to and fro,
seeming, after all, to be all it has inside it, and
to leave nothing else to palpitate; so exquisitely
delicate, so slight and tender is each little thing
of life; so fragile, yet so perfect, that as one
gazes from its wonderful body to the lovely
wings, its lustrous eyes, and its articulated
antennæ, then, moving aside the lens held over
it, can scarcely discern the fairy marvel.

We need not permit attention to be
distracted by those myriads of ephemera that
dart under the hat, or down the throat; they
are not venomous, only numerous; they are
harmless as the pretty green lizard that has lost
its way among the folds of your skirt, and is
now running up your sleeve, whence it is as
glad to get away as you can be to part with it.
I once had one upon my head. Its feet were,
no doubt, entangled in my hair, for I felt a
wonderful fuss and scuffling, and thought that some
monstrous insect must be entertaining bad
designs upon my scalp; when suddenly a lady,
with a loud shriek, still more alarming than the
fuss and scuffle I had felt, aimed a great blow
at my head, and I turned in astonishment in
time to catch sight of the terrified little
creature in its coat of lovely green, as it was vanishing
beneath the sofa. Not all the combined
efforts—prompted by horrors—of the
household could get me another peep; so lithe and
rapid were its movements, that it had glided
away through some imperceptible chink long
ago.

In his sylvan ramble the only difficulty of the
entomologist will be to know which first to
secure of all the dazzling creatures that flit
round. The air is alive with them. The cicada,
from every branch rings forth its incessant
whizzing clicking buzz, crescendo ad diminuendo,
responsively or in chorus. Suddenly a
splendid fellow with wings of burnished gold
and crimson will start up, and as suddenly sink
again invisible upon a fallen stem. In vain I
seek for it, till again like a flash of fire he rises,
and then vanishes once more. He settled close
before me, but he is also a cicada, though not
of the noisy tribe above; and, when he alights,
his lovely wings are so compactly folded that
he cannot be distinguished from the dingy
bark.

Lepidoptera like birds, and humming-birds
like lepidoptera, creatures of long-lobed,
brilliant wings, or a " wondrous length of tail;"
others with preposterously attenuated legs,
which seem to leave no body to convey, or with
equally wonderful antennæ; elaborate jaws,
with a globe of a body far in the rear; strange
forms with such an elongated threadlike waist
that it is a marvel how vitality can travel
through it, creatures bright and dull, noisy and
silent, offensive and defensive, but beautiful
always, fill the eye with wealth.

After the entomologist has filled his specimen-boxes,
he seldom knows how much he carries
home about him. The thermometer stands at one
hundred degrees, and he throws himself into a
chair at the well-supplied table for his evening
meal. Sweets and savoury dishes are attractive
not to him alone. Not one flitting, hopping,
crawling entomological specimen that has visited
him during the day is now without its representative,
from the great feathery lepidoptera that
will come flopping into the lamp, and hurling
itself among the glasses, or falling helplessly
into the sugar-basin, or the huge coleoptera,
two or three inches long, with terrible mandibles
and wonderful antennæ, to innumerable smaller
beetles, black, brown, and green; daddy-long-legs
appears with a length of limb incredible;
moths come, gnats and mosquitoes—flies, of
course, and nondescripts innumerable. Such a
buzzing and such a dashing, and such a flirting
out of candles, such charges at your nose, such
an entanglement of creatures among curls or
whiskers, or the braids of hair; such mad
plunges into the cream-jug or at preserves, and
rash attacks upon soft butter-pats, whence there
is no escape; such spinning and fizzing round
your teacup, or under the knife and fork upon
your plate; such incessant work for servants
and children in the catching and despatching of
these evening visitors, would be the death of
a timid maiden lady of delicate Northern
nerves; but the entomologist then dines in
Paradise.

At length he beats a retreat to his chamber.
The evening breeze comes gratefully through
the open windows, but so also do the fresh
specimens. In a few moments entangled legs
and wings are struggling round the candle-wicks.
The room is noisy with the monsters
that dash against walls and ceiling, whence
the concussion sends them whizzing to the
floor. The candles are almost extinguished
by their reckless assaults, and, in spite of the
intolerable heat, even the sated entomologist
is fain to close the windows in order that he
may take his bath in peace. Then he finds
that his skin, moist and sensitive from steady
perspiration, is speckled all over. With what?
Not only red spots and itching tumours, but
with scores of little dark brown creatures,
clinging and grappling so firmly that he cannot