148 LAST STAGE BRIEFEST. 



ring, through the air, for eight or nine successive evenings of 

 the month of May.* 



We have noticed, already, that the brilliant Ephemera, which, 

 in its winged prime, seldom lives long enough to see both rise 

 and set of sun, has previously existed for two years and up- 

 wards as an earth-caverned dweller in some river's bank. 



Again, the little gall-fly, as a grub, occupies, often for six 

 months, its secret chamber in the heart of an oak-apple or 

 other gall, while a few days suffice to terminate its winged 

 activities.* 



Similar examples might be multiplied, but the above serve 

 sufficiently to illustrate the position that insect life is usually 

 the most brief in its last and brightest stage, affording, in this 

 respect, a contrast, instead of a symbolic parallel, to the his- 

 tory of a beatified soul. 



A few instances do, indeed, occur, of insects being very 

 long-lived after their attainment of a perfect form ; but these 

 are, for the most part, to be found, not among the gay and 

 gaudy flutterers of air not among the livers upon sweets 

 ambrosial quaffed from painted flower-cups, not more fragile 

 than themselves not among the baskers in the sun, or the 

 sporters on his beams ; but rather amongst the dull, lugubri- 

 ous, sober-suited crawlers which lurk in the dark places of the 

 earth, and the dark corners of our habitations. 



The churchyard beetle (Blaps mortisaga), at whose very 



* See Vignette. 



