"Reptiles" 



1 The pageant of a day, without one friend 

 To soothe his tortur'd mind ; all, all are fled, 

 For though they bask'd in his meridian ray, 

 The insects vanish as his beams decline." Somerville. 



" Thick in yon stream of light, a thousand ways, 

 Upward, and downward, thwarting, and convolv'd, 

 The quivering nations sport ; till, tempest-wing'd, 

 Fierce Winter sweeps them from the face of day. 

 Even so luxurious men, unheeding, pass 

 An idle summer life in fortune's shine, 

 A season's glitter ! Thus they flutter on 

 From toy to toy, from vanity to vice ; 

 Till, blown away by Death, Oblivion comes 

 Behind, and strikes them from the book of life." Thomson. 



Riches like insects when concealed they lie * 

 Wait but for wings and in their season fly. Pope. 



The snail, butterfly, spider, lizard, and the rest, addressed 

 in some places as reptiles and vermin, are in others apostro- 

 phised as insects. Again, all are described as emanating 

 alike from putrefying vegetable matter in hot weather. 



' ' Swampy fens 



Where putrefaction into life ferments, 

 And breathes destructive myriads. 



The hoary fen 



In putrid streams emits the living cloud 

 Of pestilence." 



Especially, in a dozen poets at least, from the Nile mud : 



"When thus, the Nile, diffus'd his wat'ry train 

 In streams of plenty o'er the fruitful plain, 

 Unshapen forms, the refuse of the flood 

 Issu'd imperfect from the teeming mud, 

 But the great source and parent of the day, 

 Fashion'd the creature, and inform'd the clay." Groome. 



This prolific diluvion, produces indeed, a very large variety 

 of zoological species, from the crocodile to the mosquito. 

 About the hippopotamus I will not be certain. But it is 



