A LINGERING GOOD-BY. 205 



slumber, that he is being turned about and looked 

 at ? He will know what is done to him shortly, 

 for you shall some day go to his bottle and find 

 him waiting for you with life and motion in him 

 and a perhaps dull green vesture on. If you come 

 early enough you will find him a yellow beetle, 

 with some iridescent shades about him perhaps. 

 He is taking his first feeble footsteps and is some- 

 what inclined to tumble over. I left one such per- 

 son as a yellow beetle one evening, and woke up 

 the next morning to find him a green one ; not so 

 brilliantly green as are specimens that one often 

 meets, but a dull color, still decidedly green. 



In that hole in the root of that live-oak by the 

 little bridge across the creek reside Mr. and Mrs. 

 Sow-bug with their progeny. In that hole, alas ! 

 I once, digging with zeal and a trowel, caught a 

 glimpse of a tail rapidly disappearing in the de- 

 bris. My efforts were in vain. I could not catch 

 up. What was he ? Salamander ? Who shall 

 tell ? Such glimpses are reminders that there are 

 secret apartments in some of these trees where 

 hermits may live, and they no doubt are rightfully 

 indignant when a trowel reaches in and disturbs 

 their meditations. 



Some of these hermits live so far in that they 

 cannot be reached till the tree is down. Such 

 are some of the fat, white larva? of beetles that 

 inhabit live-oak trees. An oak of this kind was 

 chopped down about a mile from here, and a 



