32 A TOUa ROUND MY GAEDEN. 



Placing itself upon a bed of game, this worm seizes the 

 aphides, one after another, with a sort of hollow trident, 

 through which it sucks them, taking particular care to reject 

 the empty dry skin every time. One of these worms eats 

 nearly an aphis a minute; as regards the aphides, the matter 

 appears to be perfectly indififerent to them, not one of them 

 is ever seen to make the least effort to avoid being eaten. 



A Roman emperor, who found his end approaching, cried 

 out, in allusion to the custom of decreeing an apotheosis to 

 dead emperors: "I feel that I am becoming a god!" So 

 there is a moment at which this worm feels that it is becoming 

 a fly : aiid, like the lady-bird, it seeks a solitary place to pre- 

 pare for this metamorphosis. 



Here is a branch on which the aphides are only on one 

 side; to-morrow there will be none at all; the reason of this 

 is, that they are attacked by their most redoubtable enemy, 

 an enemy which the learned and witty Reaumur called the 

 Lion of the Pucerons. This is, like the others, flat in form, 

 and is of a cinnamon colour with citron-yellow stripes ; it ia 

 much more voracious than the two other species of which we 

 have spoken. If one of these worms, by mistake, happens to 

 seize one of his brethren instead of an aphis so much the 

 worse for his brother — it will eat him. It would be losing 

 precious time to replace it upon a branch, and take an aphis 

 instead of it. One can afford very little leisure for so much 

 ceremony, when one has but a fortnight to eat all these 

 fat aphides in ! In fact, at the end of a fortnight, it forgets 

 its appetite, and retires into a corner, shuts itself up in a shell 

 of white silk, as large as a pea, which it spins in a very short 

 time. Three weeks afterwards, the shell opens, and there 

 issues from it the most beautiful little creature you ever saw. 

 It is a sort of large fly* of a gay green colour, covered, when 

 it is settled, by long and lai-ge wings, of so fine a texture, that 

 its body can be plainly seen through them. These wings, 

 which are of a very pale green, present to the eye fibres, as it 

 were, of a deeper green, which form a network more charming 

 than that of the richest lace ; on each side of the head is an 

 eye of a fiery red colour, the splendour of which far surpasses 

 that of precious stones. 



• Chrysopa reticulata.— ^j}. 



