186 THE INSECT MATRON. 



late efforts, she reposed awhile, after the accomplishment of her 

 purpose, brushed her denuded corslet with her feet, and then 

 proceeding to burrow in the soft earth of the hillock, was 

 speedily lost to our observation. "How very odd!" said 

 Emily ; " what can possibly be the meaning of such a strange, 

 unnatural proceeding?" 



" I will tell you," replied we, " that which has been thought 

 fully to explain its intention." This insect female, in common 

 with her sisters, has hitherto been privileged to lead a life of en- 

 tire indolence and pleasure A few days since, having risen from 

 her lowly birth-place on those discarded pinions, we might liav 

 seen her disporting in the air with some gay and gallant com- 

 panions, of inferior size, but winged like herself. But now 

 her career of pleasure, though not of happiness, being at an end, 

 her life of usefulness is about to begin, and, in character 

 of a matron, she is called to the performance of such domestic 

 duties as \\ ill henceforth confine her to the precincts of her home. 



" Of what use now, therefore, are the glittering wings which 

 adorned and became her in her earlier youth ? Their posses- 

 sion might only, perchance, have tempted her to desert tin- 

 post which Nature, under Divine guidance, has instructed her 

 to fill. Obedient to its teaching, she has thus depoiled herself 

 of the showy pinions wliich (essential to her enjoyment in the 

 fields of air) would onlv have encumbered her in the narrower 



/ V 



but more important sphere of home." 



Emily listened in silence to our lecture on Entomology, 



