110 Indian Insects — House Visitants. 



way the hateful court,, and to forbid the restoration of it or 

 the erection of any court like it. 



This was a bitter morsel for Charles to swallow. It de- 

 prived him of the power to enrich his treasury by fines which 

 could be imposed at the discretion of his own councillors ; and 

 it took away that power, yet dearer to arbitrary men, of vin- 

 dictively pursuing and cruelly punishing those who dared to 

 resist his ordinances. It was tendered for his assent along 

 with the bill for abolishing the High Commission ; and when, 

 on the 3rd July, 1641, the king came down to the House of 

 Lords to give his assent to a number of bills, it was supposed 

 these two would have been among them. The discontent 

 which followed upon the discovery that these bills were held 

 over, expressed itself so strongly that it reached the king's 

 ears. Charles came down on the 5th July, and assented to 

 the abolition bills, and referring to the discontent, said, " Me- 

 thinks it seems strange that anyone should think I could pass 

 two bills of that importance that these were, without taking 

 some fit time to consider of them ; for it is no less than to 

 alter, in a great measure, those fundamental laws, ecclesiastical 

 and civil, which many of my predecessors have established.-" 



INDIAN INSECTS— HOUSE VISITANTS. 



BY THE EEV. E. HUNTEE, M.A. 



Towaeds the middle of June, when the Indian hot season is 

 about to terminate, let the eye turn where it will, it sees 

 vegetation languishing and all but dead. For eight months 

 previously there has scarcely been a shower ; for two and a 

 half there has blown a wind, hot as the blast of a furnace, 

 which has reduced rivers of respectable magnitude to brooks, 

 and has left streams of inferior size literally dry channels. 

 Trees or plants with leaves of a lively green are scarcely to be 

 met with, except in gardens where appliances exist for arti- 

 ficial irrigation. The animals have crept away into corners*, 

 and are at no season of the year less obtrusive. Indeed, one 

 great section of the animal kingdom — the insect class-— is 

 almost wanting, the greater number of its varied tribes exist- 

 ing at that season in the chrysalis state. 



But by and by, clouds, escaping over the tops, or through 

 the passes of that great rocky rampart which figures in maps 

 as the Western Ghauts, pile themselves around the central 

 Indian sky. After having several times threatened rain, and 

 again withdrawn the menace, till the repeated crying of " wolf, 



