O COLLOQUIA ENTOMOLOGICA. 



Ven. Trouble does not harm us ; it very often teaches us 

 wisdom. 



Erro. But it weighs us down by a perpetual weight, 

 and teaches us unhappiness also. 



Ent. Trouble, in harrowing the soul, also chastens and 

 enriches it, as the balmy breezes of Arabia, in breaking up 

 the surface of the Red Sea into multitudinous billows, impreg- 

 nate it with their perfume. But, as for the Fire-fly, trouble 

 will do her no harm; she will float, like the petrel, securely 

 on the roughest sea. Opposition may assail her and threaten 

 her, as the clanging blast of brazen trumpets, or as the lurid 

 painted pile of sunset clouds, staining ocean with their lustre ; 

 yet shall it shortly, surely cease, from its want of power 

 to exist, as those trumpet-notes melt into nothingness among 

 the hills, or as those clouds, — like the cities of the island of 

 Atalantis sinking turret after turret, dome after dome, below 

 the insatiable waters, — subside beneath the sea-girt horizon. 



Ven. Mr. Entomophilus, we wait. 



Ent. " Success to the Entomological Society." 



Omnes. " Success," &c. 



Amb. I am glad to see the Society in such a thriving 

 condition; at first I was rather fearful there was a little 

 spirit of opposition to us, but I was soon undeceived on that 

 head. 



Erro. What a delightful scene it was, when that dear old 

 man took the chair, and the whole room rang with applause ; 

 he would have spoken, but his emotion was too great, — vox 

 fauctbus hcesit ; he would have bowed to us, but he had lost 

 the power ; his feelings conquered him, and he sank back into 

 his seat, voiceless and unmanned. I wonder how many of 

 the present race of entomologists will live to be so greeted. I 

 would not, for the world, have lost that meeting. 



Ven. What becomes now of the idea that the Society is 

 the offspring of a party ? 



Erro. It would be a good bit of fun to talk to them about 

 it now: — The ^arty-Society met, &c. ; Kirby in the chair; 

 Ambulator, Venator, and I, standing behind him; Children, 

 Spence, Entomophilus, Blomer, Bennett, Waterhouse, &c. 

 round the table ; and crowded benches of entomoes filling up 

 the room, dotted here and there with a Horsfield, a Yarrell, 

 a Stephens, a Sykes, a Bowerbank 



