INSECTS ON IVY BLOSSOMS 143 



One of the most impressive sights in insect life is, 

 strange to say, in the autumn, when cold rains and 

 winds and early frosts have already brought to an 

 end all that seemed best and brightest in that fairy 

 world. 



This is where an ancient or large ivy grows in 

 some well-sheltered spot on a wall or church, or on 

 large old trees in a wood, and flowers profusely, and 

 when on a warm bright day in late September or in 

 October all the insects which were not wholly dead 

 revive for a season, and are drawn by the ivy's sweet- 

 ness from all around to that one spot. There are 

 the late butterflies, and wasps and bees of all kinds, 

 and flies of all sizes and colours green and steel- 

 blue, and grey and black and mottled, in thousands and 

 tens of thousands. They are massed on the clustered 

 blossoms, struggling for a place ; the air all about the 

 ivy is swarming with them, flying hither and thither, 

 and the humming sound they produce may be heard 

 fifty yards away like a high wind. One cannot help 

 a feeling of melancholy at this animated scene; but 

 they are anything but melancholy. Their life has 

 been a short and a merry one, and now that it is 

 about to end for ever they will end it merrily, in 

 feasting and revelry. 



And never does the hornet look greater, the king 

 and tyrant of its kind, than on these occasions. It 

 swings down among them with a sound that may be 

 heard loud and distinct above the universal hum, 



