180 SHARP EYES 



" I hev been waitin a long while but luck hez give me another 

 chance. I send by mail in a match box a bumble bee which I 

 ketched last evening. I seen him buzzin around fer a spell while 

 I was tnilkin and putty soon he pitched on to a fly on the barn 

 door and took him to a catnip bush and wus eatin him wen I 

 give him a rap with my hat and ketched him. The fly aint a 

 hoss-fly, pleg on it, and so I spose youl back out of your bargin 

 but it doos jest soot me pooty slick to think how youl hev to eat 

 crow wen you see the bumble bee with the fly in his mouth killed 

 in the ack as you sed. Larnin is a vallable thing no doubt but it 

 aint got no show agin experiens." 



The " bumblebee " was received in good condition, 

 and I have endeavored to picture the same in the act 

 of pursuit of his prey, and as he appeared in his last se- 

 rene moments when viewing the pastoral landscape 

 from the catnip-bush, with my friend milking in the 

 foreground. I thank my correspondent for the kind in- 

 formation contained in his letter, and assure him that I 

 shall not let that little horse-fly technicality stand be- 

 tween him and his nine-dollar bill and gold-plated 

 goose -yoke. I know his "bumblebee" very well. No 

 doubt it captured the fly as described. But did it oc- 

 cur to my friend that he had possibly overlooked some 

 important facts in his eagerness to get that goose-yoke? 

 It is a strange thing, for instance, that when our bum- 

 blebee concludes to dine on horse-flies instead of hon- 

 ey, he should suddenly contrive to get rid of one pair of 

 wings! We will say nothing of other lightning changes 

 that must have taken place in the insect's being, for 

 this one transformation is sufficient. If he will catch 

 the next bumblebee he sees upon a red-clover blossom 

 he will find that it has four wings, while this horse-fly 

 specimen which he has sent has but two. No, I will 



