248 LEAF-MINERS. 



depth comprised within the thickness of a sheet of paper) ho 

 at once plunges, pursues, for his appointed span, his safe and 

 luxurious way, then, in a quiet little plain or dell, which forms 

 the termination of his " happy valley," passes the period of his 

 aurelian slumber, to emerge thence a minute moth, one of the 

 most brilliant and beautiful of nature's miniature gems, wanting 

 only augmented size to vie witli the diamond-beetle and the 

 humming-bird in metallic lustre. 



A miner of the alder-leaf is described bv Swammerdam as 



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having upper wings, which " shone and glittered most glo- 

 riously with crescents of gold, silver and brown, surrounded by 

 borders of delicate black;" and Bonnet, who calls them "tiny 

 miracles of nature," only regrets that they are not "en grand." 



There is hardly a tree or plant of which the leaves do not at 

 one time or another furnish specimens of the Leaf-miner's 

 winding tunnels. However unacquainted with the outward 

 tokens of their inward presence, scarce anybody can have 

 failed to perceive those white serpentine lines so especially 

 common on the leaves of the rose-tree, the bramble, the honey- 

 suckle, and the oak. Irregular tracts of the above description, 

 or brownish transparent blotches, are always certain signs 

 that the leaf, of whatsoever sort, whereon they are exhibited, 

 has been subjected to the operations of some insect-miner ; but 

 they do not by any means as indubitaby indicate that miner to 

 have been a moth caterpillar. 



The leaves of Columbine are not unfrequently variegated by 



