the assembly by which it is occupied; for being probably the tenth or last generation, it is likely to contain, at length, some of the lords of this curious creation. Ay, now we have them! here, amongst the green petticoats are some individuals distinguished by surtouts, some of bright yellow, some of orange, some of sober-brown,-colours worn in accordance, it is said, with their youth, middle, or advanced age. All these Mercuries wear wings; but even their pinions assume with equal propriety a corresponding hue deepening from white to transparent black, according to the period of their wearers' standing.

"The insect-race is celebrated for having numerous progenies, but these are far superior to all the rest. They are no fathers of ten in family, nor of twenty, nor of twenty times twenty, but (marvel of multiplication!) each of these sires can boast of being the actual parent of ten generations, all, save the last, made up of daughters! You who doubt whether this be true, or may desire to know how it has been proved, we refer to the scientific pages of Bonnet, Trembley, Richardson, Kennie, and a host of other unimpeachable authorities."

The Ephemera vulgata, or may-fly, is literally a creature of a day. Let us examine our cloud-dropt insect a little minutely.-Look at these four unequal wings, with nervures so delicately articulate, resembling the finest lace, the meshes filled by yellowish glassy membrane, and freaked with dark brown spots or squares. On the narrow chest and long and flexible body, the same colours are harmoniously disposed in spots and rings, and even the three slender filaments which form the tail are ringed, en suite, with black and yellow, the whole being covered with a natural varnish. How nicely jointed also, and finely polished are the six tapering legs, of which the two foremost are much longer than the others; forming, when placed together and stretched forward, a sort of counterpoise in flight to the filaments of the tail. Beside the large compound eyes, which occupy a great portion of the head, we can just discern without a magnifier, and clearly with one, three shining spots disposed in a triangle close behind them. These are the ocelli or simple eyes, common to most other perfect insects.

All this external beauty, with internal organism yet more

admirable, is intended but for the duration and uses of less than a single day! Fewer organs and far less adornment might seem, in our contracted judgment, to have sufficed for creatures during so short a time to employ the former, and to have the latter, in most cases overlooked at least by human observers. Occasionally indeed, as we are now doing, we are led to amuse what we call an idle hour, by bestowing a little notice on the more fleeting and fragile works of nature; and then, as we admire the elegance of form, the exquisite finish, the curious adaptation of parts, so strikingly, if not pre-eminently, observable in the flower or the insect of a day, there comes, mingled with our admiration, a feeling somewhat akin to wondering regret that so much pains should have been bestowed on the formation of an object intended to exist but for so short a space. "It's almost a pity! it's scarcely worth while!" are phrases which rising to our lips, are checked only by the monstrous unfitness of applying them to the works of an Infinite Being, with whom to will is to create, and to whom a day is as a thousand years -a thousand years as a day.

"To return to our insect of a day, or to speak with more precision, of from four to five hours, the supposed limit of existence with those amongst the ephemera permitted to reach a good old age. These, however, form probably but a minor portion of their countless swarms, liable as they are to continual accidents by flood and field;' if, indeed, we may regard as accidents those common catastrophes by which, for the benefit of other animals, they are designed to perish. Their dangers and disasters are thus pathetically enumerated by Swammerdam: Who,' says he, hath so great a genius, or is so conversant in the art of writing, as to be able to describe, with a due sense, the trouble and misfortunes to which this creature is subject during the short continuance of its flying life. For my part, I confess, I am by no means able to execute the task; nor did I know whether nature ever produced a more innocent and simple little creature, which is, nevertheless, destined to undergo so many miseries and horrible changes. An infinite number are destroyed in their birth, that is final transformation, by fish. Clutius acquits no species of fish of this cruelty except perch and pike. On land, when engaged in the work of

changing their skins, they are barbarously devoured by swallows and other birds. Escaped this peril, when they approach for a second time the surface of the water to sport and play, they are again likely to fall a prey to fish, which drag them to the dark bottom and devour them. Thus though most innocent, no wild beasts can be pursued with greater cruelty.'

"The conscience of the fly-fisher," adds the interesting author of "Episodes of Insect Life," from whom the above little narrative is borrowed, "will suggest another misery more acute, perhaps, and prolonged than either of the above, added by his own hands to the catalogue of the poor may-fly's sad calamities."

As roses and all sweet flowers abound at this season, so also are butterflies abundant.

TO A BUTTERFLY.

Stay near me do not take thy flight!

A little longer stay in sight!

Much converse do I find in thee,

Historian of my infancy!

Float near me; do not yet depart!

Dead times revive in thee:

Thou bring'st, gay creature as thou art!

A solemn image to my heart,

My father's family.

Oh! pleasant, pleasant were the days

The time when in our childish plays,
My sister Emmeline and I

Together chased the butterfly!

A very hunter did I rush

Upon the prey: with leaps and springs

I followed on from brake to bush;
But she, God love her! feared to brush
The dust from off its wings.

WORDSWORTH.

"Thoughts on butterflies," says the graceful author of "Episodes of Insect Life," "always bring with them thoughts on flowers." Under this more combined aspect, they are both so doubly pleasant to look upon, that we must trace here a few of their corresponding features.

"Flowers seem, as it were, to impart a portion of their

own characteristics to all things that frequent them. This is peculiarly exemplified in the butterfly, which must be regarded, par excellence, as the insect of flowers, and a flower-like insect, gay and innocent, made after a floral pattern, and coloured after floral hues. But even with the insect families, which are usually dark and repulsive, that, for instance, of cock-roaches, which are for the most part black or brown; the few species which resort to flowers are gaily coloured. What a contrast also between the dark, loathsome, in-door spider, and their prettily-painted, green and red, and white and yellow brethren of the field and garden, which seek their prey among the flowers; while, more striking still, is the difference between the wingless, disgusting plague of cities, and the elegantly formed, brightly coloured, winged bugs, which are common frequenters of the parterre. Whether this be imputed to the effect of light, or assigned poetically to the breathing influence of a flowery atmosphere, and the tendency of all things to produce their similitudes, there lies beneath the natural fact a moral analogy of application to ourselves.

Let us quote to this effect, from the herbal of a quaint old writer, Gérarde, on the influence of flowers: "Through their beauty and variety of colour and exquisite form, they do bring to a liberal and gentle mind the remembrance of honesty, comeliness, and all kinds of virtues; for it would be an unseemly thing (as a certain wise man saith) for him that doth look upon and handle fair and beautiful things, and who frequenteth and is conversant in fair and beautiful places, to have his mind not fair also."

However few may thus read their moral, and open their hearts for the reception of its sweetness, we might almost say that all but life-haters love flowers; and for the same reasons, nearly all, though haters of insects in general, love butterflies. We almost, indeed, seem to look upon them as animated members of the floral kingdom, and regard them much in like manner according to the progressive stages of our lives. In childhood we long for and pursue them; in youth we poetise them; in manhood scarcely heed them; in age begin to find in them, perhaps, alas! for the first time, sermons of warning and emblems of hope. The following, with other beautiful lines from an American poet,

were written upon flowers, but with the substitution of only a single word, do they not apply precisely unto butterflies, which, like them, are wont to

Expand their light and soul-like wings,
Teaching us by most persuasive reasons
How akin they are to human things.

And with child-like credulous affection
We behold those tender wings expand,
Emblems of our own great resurrection,

Emblems of the bright and better land.

But it is not a mere poetic, much less a fanciful, analogy which links the butterfly by a thousand golden chains with the loveliest productions of the vegetable world. The leaf and the caterpillar, the flower and the butterfly, seem, as it has been said, made for each other; though we must certainly admit that the plant would, to all appearance, do much better without the insect, than the insect without the plant, which furnishes the caterpillar with sustenance, and the butterfly with a velvet cushion for repose, or a nectared cup for refreshment.

Independently of this bond of use (more mutual perhaps than we are at present able to discern), there has been traced by naturalists an intimate analogy of states and developments between the lepidopterous insect and the perfect vegetable. The caterpillar, disclosed from the egg, encases in its various skins the gradually expanding form of the future butterfly; as the plant, burst from the seed or bulb, encloses in its successive integuments of root, stalk, and floral leaves, the flower and fruit in process of formation. The chrysalis, that shroud or cover, which at once protects and imprisons the winged creature it encloses, finds. its correspondence in the defensive calyx which enwraps the delicate corolla. Both burst from their envelopes in perfect form the insect to die, the flower to fade, soon after having provided for the continuance of their kind.

In the habits, no less than in the structure of the butterfly and the flower, there is observable no slight degree of correspondence. In the gloom of night or of cloudy weather, the insect folds its wings, the flower its wing-like petals; and as flowers love to turn towards the sun, so