A LINGERING GOOD-BY. 215 



" We that have good wits have much to answer 

 for," says Touchstone, but, if that plain-spoken 

 clown would ever come out of that forest of Arden 

 in which he perpetually lingers, perhaps he might 

 acknowledge that those who have not good wits in 

 this day have much to answer for, and are obliged 

 to make answer, too, when they see their crops 

 devoured by creatures that they might have known 

 how to fight, if they had read the information 

 freely placed in their hands. And perhaps Touch- 

 stone, beholding the multitude of the insect crea- 

 tion, might again have occasion to remark, " The 

 fool doth think that he is wise, but the wise man 

 knows himself to be a fool," a saying that quite 

 expresses the ideas of people in regard to " bugs ; " 

 those who know but little about them being much 

 more elated with self-wisdom than those who know 

 more. 



I once had the privilege of giving a scarcely 

 one-day-old, perhaps not more than half-a-day-old, 

 Syrphus larva his first meal. He was a brave 

 youth and had started out independently enough 

 to seek his own fortune, when I, like a fairy god- 

 mother gave him my gift. It was an aphis about 

 his size. He stuck his head into the aphis, back 

 of the victim's head and went to work. 



For forty-five long minutes I watched him. 

 He sucked the aphis as a baby would a bottle. 

 Tiring of his devotion to that aphis, I took it 

 from him. Poor fellow ! It was his first disap- 



