S2if COLLOQUIA ENTOMOLOGICA. 



Where a leaf never dies on the still blooming bowers, 

 And the bee banquets on through a whole year of flowers ; 



where I might always be learning something new ; something 

 calculated to place the omnipotence of our Creator still more 

 forcibly before me ; something to make me feel, still more 

 strongly, my own nothingness : — even now, when disap- 

 pointed hope, when misfortune, nay disgrace, arising from my 

 too thoughtless disposition; when sorrow for the death of those 

 who were my friends in the happy days of my childhood, who 

 played, and who studied with me ; even now, broken down 

 by trouble, the hope that I may live to pass a few years in the 

 majestic solitudes of the Andes, chains me to a life, to me 

 almost as irksome as it is valueless to others. 



Ent. 'Tis a glowing picture; but is there no alloy, no 

 drawback ? 



Erro. Yes, there is ; and I have often shuddered at the 

 thought. What think you that it is ? — the poisonous rattlesnake 

 basking in the sun? — the deadly Bothrops, lurking under a 

 large stone when I turned it over for a Carab? — the great 

 Boa, swinging like a pendulum by his tail from a tree ; or 

 the forest all a-howl with jaguars ? No, none of these ; but, 

 that I should have to see such beings as Nestor and Eury- 

 lochus, and Menelaus, a constant prey to a fly-catcher, as 

 brilliant as themselves, which, taking his station on a dead 

 twig, darted off, and seized them as they approached 



Rus. Then, returning again to the very same twig, with 

 that glorious Menelaus in his bill, sever those four resplen- 

 dent wings, and drop them, gently hovering, and often flicker- 

 ing upward a moment in the eddy of a tropical air-current, as 

 if again endowed with life; wavering and shifting colour; 

 now black, and now a blaze of blue ; at last, sinking to the 

 earth, which henceforward they must adorn no more. 



Erro. O, Doctor, don't dwell on it; there is something 

 to me so mournful in the idea of any thing so lovely perishing; 

 but it is the fate of all that is beautiful. 



Kai 7-0 pohov Kokor tari kcu b '^(popog avru fxapaiptC 

 Kat TO 'iov KoKoy etrriv ev eiapi Kal Ta-)(y y»/pfx* 

 AevKoy ro Kpivov iarl {xapaivETCU hviKa TrinTif 

 'A ce ^tw*' XivKci, Koi TciKtrai ciiiKci Tra^dfi. 



