494 COLLOQUIA ENTOMOLOGICA. 



but I have a nidus under observation, and I hope soon to be 

 able to satisfy your inquiries about them. 



Tyro. I shall expect to learn all about them ; — you seem 

 to have such good opportunities for observation. I can't help 

 fancying to myself how pleasantly you wile away many an 

 otherwise care-full hour in your delightful garden, amidst 

 " omnia copia narium^'' watching your favourites, who, like 

 little familiars, reveal to you, as if by the force of some secret 

 spell, what they conceal from more superficial, or less talented 

 observers. 



Ent. Such pursuits possess, above most others, the power 

 of tranquillizing the agitations of a troubled spirit, — of in- 

 ducing those feelings, that mood of mind, in which, if past 

 sorrows are not all forgotten, their remembrance recurs to the 

 mind deprived of its poignancy. Often have I perceived them 

 to be 



*' Deforrais agrimonise 

 Dulcibus alloquiis," — 



and it is ])leasant to think that the happiness afforded by these 

 pursuits is accessible to all, or most of us, how or wherever 

 situated. As a French naturalist has well observed, — he is 

 addressing those engaged in the study of natural history: — 

 " Dans les vastes plaines et au milieu des bois touffus, sur le 

 haut des raonts et dans le fond de la vallee solitaire, vers le 

 bord des ruisseaux paisibles et sur I'immense surface de 

 I'ocean, vous serez sans cesse entoures des objets de votre 

 etude." 



Tyro. Very true ; yet how many are so regardless — take 

 so little note of what passes around them, that they would 

 go to their graves without discovering half the beauties of 

 nature, if no one unfolded its leaves for them; — thus losing 

 some of the purest pleasures the embodied soul is capable of 

 enjoying, for want of an interpreter. Such interpreters, while 

 they open to many a new and inexhaustible source of pleasure, 

 are of great utility ; and we must love and venerate the man 

 who employs his talents in thus increasing the amount of 

 human happiness. With what a host of delightful associa- 

 tions such names as Ray, Kirby, and White, are connected ! 



Ent. I will confess to you, I have no higher ambition 

 than thus 



