52 A TOUK BOUND MY GABDEN. 



third part of a hair, is hollow, and has deposited an egg in 

 an interior part of the caterpillar, where this operation does 

 it no harm. From this egg issues a worm, which consumes 

 the caterpillar very slowly. The latter feels ill at ease, loses 

 its appetite, and makes its cocoon; but, in its cocoon, its 

 troublesome guest never ceases to devour it, tUl, in its tiu-n, 

 it is metamorphosed, and becomes a fly similar to that which 

 we saw lay the egg. It pierces the cocoon of the caterpillar, 

 and flies away in search of a male, and after that of a cater- 

 pillar, in which it may deposit its eggs. The males are 

 without the long, sting-looking wimble. 



Among the parasites whom you meet with yonder, as you 

 might have done here, my Mend, do you think you shall 

 find any so extraordinary in their manner of living upon the 

 world? 



Each species of ichneumon, of those which lay in cater- 

 pillars, has its favourite caterpillar. There are some so small 

 that tiiey lay in an egg of a butterfly, into which they 

 insinuate their wimble. The worm is born in the egg, and 

 there finds plenty of nourishment — until, changed into a fly, 

 it breaks the shell of it to take flight. 



There are in our gardens, and among those who pretend to 

 love them, good sorts of folks, who are a little like you, my 

 friend. Their estimation of a flower rises in proportion with 

 its rarity, and the distance fi:om which it has been brought, 

 I have often met with these curiosity-seekers and amateurs, 

 people who find in possession no other pleasure but that des- 

 picable one of knowing that others do not possess — ^people 

 who have flowers, not for the sake of looking at them, but 

 showing them. Their most cherished flowers — those which 

 were shown me with the most ostentation — those which 

 served as a pretext for the most disdainful tone towards me — 

 were scarce plants, it is true, but of so little brilliancy in 

 themselves, and so completely efiaced by other more common 

 plants, that I consider myself, a man — good, excellent, and 

 full of mildness and benignity — not to have yielded, except 

 in one single instance, to the temptation of saying to their 

 ostentatious owner — 



" Is that plant very scarce, sir?" 



" Oh yes, extremely scarce, sir." 



