London Insects. 167 



capable of, when in a passion, first introduces himself 

 by cautiously shaking the web at a safe distance. If 

 rash or inexperienced enough to go within reach of 

 her jaws without receiving the sign of acceptance, he 

 is not likely to have a chance of repeating the 

 indiscretion. 



The insect world is enchanted land, and in it we 

 are apt to wander on as forgetful of time and space 

 as was Rip Van Winkle in the Sleepy Hollow. But 

 one must stop somewhere, and having strayed over 

 the border to the Spiders it will be wise to rest there 

 without wandering farther. 



The subject of one of Artemus Ward's lectures as 

 published in his advertisements was " The Babes in 

 the Wood." After an hour's talk on every other 

 conceivable subject he apologised for digression, and 

 said that he had every reason to believe that the 

 babes in the wood were " very nice young people," 

 but he did not think he had anything else to say 

 about them. It is difficult to help feeling a little 

 uncomfortably suspicious of being guilty of some- 

 thing very like a feeble imitation of his style on 

 coming to the end of a chapter on " London Insects," 

 which gives no list and mentions scarcely a dozen of 

 them. But it is a charm of Natural History in all 

 its branches that nothing that is of human interest 

 can be altogether strange to it. The students of 

 " God's great second volume," even in the lowest 

 forms', are franked to wander where they will through 

 playgrounds to which the Yellowstone Park is no- 

 thing, and, grey hairs notwitstanding, while there are 

 schoolboys still. 



One of the greatest disadvantages of life in a great 

 town is its artificialness. Man and his works are 

 everywhere, and Nature is lost sight of in the dust 



