THE BUGS. 13 ! 



and when I seize my Shakespeare, in the extremity of my 

 despair, and search for " To be or not to be," the foul 

 suicides pop in between the leaves, unbeknown to me, and 

 get flattened out into mementoes for coming days. Olim 

 meminissc juvabit ! 



I give the second place to the dumpy green bug and the 

 dumpy brown bug, which likewise swarm into the house 

 during the monsoon, and consort with blister beetles an-d 

 other bad characters. If there could be another first place 

 they should have it. In the third rank all the rest may be 

 included, viz., the large black wood-bug, which looks as if 

 it would bite, or rather stick its stiletto into you, savagely, 

 if you touched it, with the whole category of odious crimson 

 and black dandies, and the tapering curiosities in yellow 

 and brown, with pointed snouts. 



After all, to give the bugs their due, our judgment of 

 them is founded upon a very casual acquaintance, and may 

 be an unjust judgment. We see them once in a way, when 

 the light of the lamp calls them together to plague us, but 

 how little we know of their private lives ! They populatei 

 in astonishing numbers, the trees of the jungle and the 

 plants of the garden, and it may be that they are indus- 

 trious and useful members of insect society. It may even 



