FROM RUSTICUS. 337 



already cracked, as though the earth were about to open to the 

 centre ; we shall want leaping poles to cross the chasms. 



Did you ever observe the flies on the sunflowers cleaning 

 themselves ? They first have a good long feast of honey, and 

 cover themselves with pollen ; eyes, legs and wings, all as 

 yellow as gold. When one of the thieves has managed to get 

 so polleny that he can't see, he sets to work to clean himself: 

 it is most amusing to see his operations ; the hind legs clean 

 the wings, and the fore legs the head ; with great skill the 

 pollen is scraped off the head, eyes, and face, and then rolled 

 up into pellets by the fore legs and thrown away with a kind 

 of jerk. I have seen this done fifty times. The humble bees 

 on a sunflower are also very odd-mannered ; they get as drunk 

 as Bacchus or Silenus ; then they get sleepy as Morpheus, 

 and cross as Cerberus ; if you touch one he leans on one side, 

 cocking up the opposite legs into the air, and plays divers 

 other antics, till with his various trials to show that he is sober, 

 and able to fight and defend himself, he sidles, staggers, rolls, 

 and falls to the ground, and there lays on his back till he has 

 slept himself sober. 



I have to-day cut open codling after codling, and found the 

 pips regularly garrisoned with aphites — mark the termination — 

 not one lone aphis, but a whole troop of all sizes. When I 

 let in the daylight there was a considerable sprawling and 

 waving of legs, and no small alarm in the hive, but by degrees 

 they got used to light and fresh air, and were quite still. I tried 

 to tickle them with a straw in order again to watch their move- 

 ments, when lo and behold, they were dead, — gathered to then- 

 fathers, — gone to the tomb of all the Capulets. Some had 

 heaved anchor and dropped from the pip ; others fixed more 

 firmly had died at their post, and tucking their legs together 

 under them, hung by their beak. In no apple was there any 

 road in or out ; there was no chance of their passing to the 

 outer air, or of their having come from it ; indeed their speedy 

 death proved that change of air did not agree with them. I 

 was particularly careful in my search for a via, but there was 

 none. I have often seen the same thing in a bloated poplar 

 leaf; but here is a possibility of the egg being laid between 

 the cuticles of the leaf, then the sap-suction commencing, 

 the bloat may be caused ; but this is impossible in a huge 

 apple, with an inch and a half of pulp in every direction. 



NO. IV. VOL. III. x x 



