BOOK XVIII. Lx\'i. 250-L.wii. 253 



worms (that is what the country-people call those 

 starlike flights of insects, the Greek nanie for which 

 is lampyrides) thanks to Nature's unbelievable kind- 

 ness. LX\' II. She had already formed the remark- 

 able group of the Pleiads in the sky ; yet not content 

 with these she has made other stars on the earth, 

 as thnutrh crying aloud: ' Why gaze at the heavens, 

 luisbandman ? Why, rustic, search for the stars? 

 Already the slumber laid on you by the nights in 

 your fatigue is shorter. Lo and behold, I scatter 

 special stars for you among your plants, and I 

 disphiy tliem to you in the evening and as you unyoke 

 to leave off work, and I stimulate your attention by 

 a marvel so that you may not be able to pass them 

 by : do you see how their fire-Hke brilliance is 

 screened by their folded wings, and how they carry 

 davlight with them even in the night ? I have given 

 you plants that mark the hours, and in order that 

 you may not even have to avert your eyes from the 

 earth to look at the sun, the heliotrope and the lupine 

 revolve keeping time with him. Why then do you 

 still look higher and scan the heavens themselves ? 

 Lo ! you have Pleiads at your very feet.' Glow-worms 

 do not makc their appeai-ance on fixed days or last a 

 definite period,but certain it is that they are the off- 

 spring of this particular constellation. Consequently 

 anybndv who does his summer sowing before they 

 appear ' will have himself to thank for labour 

 wasted '. " In this interval also the little bee comes 

 forth and announces that the bean is flowering, and 

 the bean begins to flower to tempt her out. We 

 will also give another sign of cold weather being 

 ended : when you sec the mulberry budding, after 

 that you need not fear daniage from cold. 



349 



