Ants and Butterflies. 1 65 



educated sense of beauty they have, and what inherited taste. 

 Who, on the one hand, has ever seen a butterfly that did 

 not do its work properly, or, on the other hand, was in such 

 a hurry that it had not time to be civil. I know that butter- 

 flies sometimes develop sordid and morbid likings for raw 

 meat and other abominations, but all the same I think that, 

 taking the insect-world all round, there is no other class that 

 fulfils its duties with, at once, more credit to itself and more 

 pleasure to others than the "idle" butterflies. They seem 

 only an ornament of society, and yet, if they were gone, how 

 substantial would be their loss ! The ants, doubtless, do not 

 think so, for the formic proletariat look upon the necessity 

 for labour as a brand an ignoble birth-mark, and yet 

 imagine that the measure of an insect's worth is in the sweat 

 of its limbs. 



And now I have gone beyond the poets in imagining ; 

 but let that be as it may I have not gone beyond the facts 

 of nature. Ah me ! the fables that the hedgerows tell ; the 

 parables of the fields ! Of these the poets have known little. 

 Imagine even Thomson writing this fustian : 



" Behold ! ye pilgrims of this earth, behold ! 

 See all but man with unearn'd pleasure gay : 

 See her bright robes the butterfly unfold, 

 Broke from her wintry tomb in prime of May ! 

 What youthful bride can equal her array ? 

 Who can with her for easy pleasure vie ? 

 From mead to mead with gentle wing to stray, 

 From flower to flower on balmy gales to fly, 

 Is all she has to do beneath the radiant sky." 



And thus Error has come down to us in their lines, sancti- 

 fied by the beauty of their genius and the magic of their 

 speech. 



" As an ant of his talents superiourly vain, 

 Was trotting with consequence over the plain, 

 A worm, in his progress remarkably slow, 

 Cry'd " Bless your good worship, wherever you go ! 

 I hope your great mightiness wont take it ill, 

 I pay my respects with a hearty good will ! " 



