136 A NATURE WOOING. 



which possess this life are so minute that it seems a 

 miracle how the organs necessary to perpetuate the 

 chemical changes can exist within the bodies of the be- 

 ings which possess them. Yet live they do, use oxy- 

 gen, assimilate food, grow, reproduce their kind, and 

 perform all other duties necessary to their existence, 

 e'en though made up of but a single cell. 



April 2, 1899. The morning fair; the wind high; 

 the temperature 60 at 7 : 30 o'clock. I betook myself 

 to an orange grove two miles west of Ormond, in 

 order to see, if possible, orange blossoms before I 

 leave Florida. On the way I took from the flowers 

 of a Senecio a number of specimens of a pretty tri^ 

 colored, slender-bodied beetle, Languria marginipen- 

 nis Schwz. It is three-tenths of an inch in length; 

 red, blue and black in color ; the black being confined 

 to the head, part of the legs and a spot on the thorax ; 

 and the blue to the elytra. It was described from 

 Tampa and Enterprise in 1878, and is not known to 

 occur north of this state. 



At the orange grove I found but a single blossom. 

 I got the scent of it, but left it as a reward to the 

 owner for his labor and expense in saying the tree 

 from the ravages of the frost. This is the only grove 

 in an area of one hundred square miles which, escap- 

 ing the rigors of the winter, bears green leaves and an 

 occasional blossom. The owner, warned by the 

 weather bureau twelve hours in advance, placed over 

 each tree a tent, within which he kept burning a coal- 



