INSECTS AS PROPRIETORS. 283 



accounts, as a deafening bagpiper his shrilly clamour audible, 

 it is said, at a mile's distance. 



As for being " happier than the happiest king," the poet 

 might have chosen, we imagine, a happier expression to ex- 

 press the supreme felicity of his monarch of the trees, sup- 

 posing, that is, the amount of happiness comprised within the 

 golden circlet of a crown to be no bigger than philosophers, 

 and poets also, have usually considered it. 



In the undisputed range of their several territories, whether 

 of foliage or of grass, our two appropriators may be reckoned 

 much upon a par; though he of the tree can certainly, from 

 his loftier position, boast of a wider and more absolute com- 

 mand. For this reason (considering both as kings) King Tree- 

 hopper may be also, if not the happier, the safer of the two. 



As for the labours of man being made subservient to the 

 insect's use, this certainly is a distinction which belongs much 

 more properly to the grasshopper, " the landlord," if you will, 

 of our meadows and our corn-fields, until at midsummer, or in 

 harvest (his position reversed) he finds himself a tenant, 

 forcibly ejected at the point of scythe or sickle. Here let us 

 stop and compare, as applied to both our revellers of the sum- 

 mer, the dictum of poet and the evidence of naturalist. 



First for judgment on the tree-hopper. The insect of Ana- 

 creon might and may possibly be of more innoxious character ; 

 but we are told by Stoll, that the common species of Tettix or 

 Cicada, what he calls " La Cigale Vieilleme" does infinite 

 injury to trees, especially to plantations of coffee, 1 by boring 

 grooves and holes in the smaller branches, both for the depo- 

 sition of eggs and for extracting juices. 



Now, Mr. Grasshopper! Are thy "joy" and "luxury" 

 the joy and luxury of perfect innocence. On ocular evidence 

 dost thou stand condemned. Each notch in the verdant, much 

 more the withering blade, is as a mouth opened against thee in 

 mute accusation. True, we hear and read but little of thy 

 1 At Surinam. 



K E 



