COLLOQUIA ENTOMOLOGICA. 101 



have you never vi^atched a lady's delicate fingers wander a 

 voluntary prelude among the keys of a piano ? and have you 

 never thought the music more delightful than the most studied 

 and elaborate harmony produced by the consummate and com- 

 bined skill of composer and performer ? So now let your mind 

 wander a moment among the wards of your memory, in search 

 of facts and anecdotes of the elephant and the ant : the result 

 will be more convincing, more delightful far than the most 

 abstruse and complex essay that man could compile. The 

 elephant, you already find, premeditates ; the ant is the creature 

 of mere impulse. 



Erro. Allow me to suggest that insects alter their habits 

 according to weather and other casualties. 



Ent. I have heard that bees in the tropics cease to col- 

 lect honey ; that wasps, which build here underground, build 

 there in trees. These fictions are copied from one to another, 

 and will be to the last day, no doubt. They might as well say 

 that men assume the tails of monkeys at the equator, and the 

 horns of rein-deer at the poles. Naturalists, if consulted, would 

 contradict such absurdities at once. 



Erro. Where is such precious trash to be found ? 



Ent. I don't know ; I never read. 



Erro. Nor I, except Water ton's Wanderings. I can say 

 that by heart, and am now learning to repeat it backwards. 1 

 have already learned the last journey perfectly. 



Ent. How very interesting ! 



Erro. You can't know a good thing too well. How gladly 

 would I start on just such a pilgrimage as his to Essequibo. 

 1 never see the swallows gathei'ing on the roof of the about- 

 to-be-deserted house, or on the topmost twigs of the tree about 

 to die, but I long to join these gay and giddy habitants of 

 perpetual summer. My soul yearns for the primaeval shades of 

 Demerara, for the unclouded sun of Venezuela. How gladly 

 would I leave my home, my country, my friends,— aye, even 

 you, Moffy, — in this chilly inhospitable clime, and pursue my 

 trackless way in company with Nature's self, through woods 

 which none but the wild deer, or the wilder native, ever trod ; 

 where the king-vulture-mounted Mora rears its lightning- 

 blasted and single branch into the sky, — a solitary but 

 triumphant memorial of its quondam superiority over whole 

 oceans of forestry. 



