96 A TOUS SOUND MY GARDEN. 



there not exist some such cause for my extreme partiality for 

 the violet? Perhaps — ^but no; — there are some memories 

 too holy for friendship even — we are travelling round a gar- 

 den — not laying bare scarcely cicatrised wounds. 



Upon a stalk of groundsel there is a caterpillar formed of 

 black and yellow rings, dining with an apparently good appe- 

 tite ; I wiU catch it : on putting my finger to it, it falls to the 

 ground rolled up into a ball, and lies quite motionless. It 

 will not be long before it spins a thin cocoon, from which it 

 wiU not come out in less than a year, in the form of a little 

 moth, as richly clothed as it was in its first shape, but it will 

 be of a very different colour. Its head, its corselet, and its 

 body will be of a beautiful black ; its upper wings will be of 

 a grey black, upon which wiU be marked a line of a bright 

 carmine, with a spot of the same colour underneath, forming 

 on each wing a kind of point of admiration. The inferior 

 wings, and the under part of the butterfly, will be of this 

 same carmine. It carries its wings in the form of a roof.^ 



Ants are marching through the grass as we would march 

 through a thick forest; there are for them, between jihese 

 closely growing blades, routes, roads, and foot-paths. 



Many tales have been told about ants, many fables imagined 

 and invented; falsehoods have been heaped upon falsehoods, 

 and yet in the accounts of the false wonders related, the nar- 

 rators have stopped far short of the real marvels. 



Ants have no granaries in which, during summer, they 

 store provisions for the coming winter. 



La Fontaine said so : — but La Fontaine was mistaken. 

 La Fontaine had as much wit and honhommie as any man ; but 

 he was not perfectly acquainted with all the actors he brought 

 upon the stage. A crow coidd not carry a cheese, nor would 

 a fox covet it, if it could. La Fontaine, in this respect, re- 

 sembles translators, who, although well acquainted with Latin, 

 translate excellent Latin into very bad English. They may 

 be fairly reminded, that, in order to translate, it is not suffi- 

 cient to take something away from one language, they must 

 know how to convey it skilfully into another. La Fontaine 

 was well acquainted with men, but had but little knowledge 



(1) CalUmarpha Jacohasa, It is one of the very few Lepidoptera 'whose winga 

 aie alike on both sides. — Ed. 



