HA RD WICKE'S S CIENCE- G OSS IF. 



when man, woman and child were out on the sloping 

 bank disporting with pitchforks and sticks, as though 

 it were a hayfield : and it seems but as yesterday 

 that a heavy smoke rolled up at evening from the 

 spontaneous ignition of the damp store. It appears 

 but quite lately that the little livid cockroaches, 

 forewarned by the chill of an impending change, 

 attempted to establish their colony in the hinge of the 

 hospitable door, and when ousted by the housemaid's 

 broom, that its minute progeny hid away in the hair 

 brush. It lastly seems but quite recently that the 

 house-ants, made aware by scent and by touch of the 

 onslaught on the cockroaches, appeared like ghouls 

 from some unknown regions, to banquet upon the 

 dying and the dead. 



Let us go down by the way of the vineyards and 

 behold the gnarly vines rejuvenescent with fragrant 

 and tender grapes. Many of the autumnal butterflies 



well willows and frequented the Westminster haw- 

 thorns, that was dodged over the mere and run down 

 on the wolds ? No longer smitten with withering 

 beauty disclosed by the haze of the morning, our 

 thoughts ofttimes in their plenitude become a 

 weariness and a burden : let us then 'seek a solace in 

 the discovery of new horizons. Over the brambles 

 along which the big dragon-fly is hawking trail 

 beaded clusters of fruit as large as raspberries, whose 

 fragrant juice hornets and plant-bugs are tippling, 

 and just within reach among the prickles there 

 depends a sparkling object resembling a choice pear 

 carved out of malachite. A sly sidelong glance 

 suffices to show that this dainty morsel is a tree-frog 

 who is breathing softly, and no artist could have 

 conceived a happier idea of comfort than that 

 presented by his contemplative profile as he squats 

 huddled together with half-shut eyes. 



Fig. i. — Ephippiger selligere (the songster of La Vendue), c, its musical comb ; E,; its ears. 

 The bald-headed man in the horizon is supposed to be the moon. 



flutter past us in fresh array, and some of them may 

 be accounted a prize, but until the verdant green 

 species described in some unprocurable Russian work 

 becomes the rage, or those which are phenominal 

 and semi-extinct be sought for, it will be difficult, 

 methinks, to estimate the value of a butterflyion these 

 vasty acres. What superlative charm for the curioso 

 is to be found in the waste of cherry blossom flaming 

 with scarce swallow-tails, in the lucern-field ghostly 

 with Bath whites, in a patch of dwarf furze fluttering 

 with Arion-blues, in a heathery tract where the 

 Meliteas are glaring like the Guernsey lilies, in the 

 bed of pansies silvery with Queens of Spain, or in a 

 wilderness of agrimony golden with large coppers. 

 Is this, you nice Londoners will be prone to exclaim, 

 that thing so new, so beautiful and so rare, that was 

 embroidered in needlework and described so 

 vaguely ; that was heard of out at Hampstead and 

 believed in at Epping, that used to visit the Camber- 



Now you who love the violin and the serenade, 

 come hither, for the hedge-bank has become an opera- 

 house that is rattling and roaring to the orchestra. 

 The drama is entitled the " Martinmas Summer, or 

 all for love," and the performers are the grass- 

 hoppers, Stenobothrus, and the leaf-crickets, Dec- 

 ticus, Locusta and Ephippiger. The choregraphy of 

 the one, as you will quickly perceive, is a warning 

 trill of suppressed emotion and defiance, interspersed 

 with tender passages composed of low and grating 

 notes that fall somewhat harshly on the enamoured 

 ear : that of the other is a whistling shrill of hasty- 

 passion interspersed with staccato notes that trip it 

 lightly on the understanding. In both cases the 

 lovers are fiery and boisterous, and their lady loves 

 are from habit or from nature, silent, coy and 

 distrustful ; just like Madam Locusta now, who leans 

 so caressingly on one side to catch the sunbeams 

 with a leg akimbo. But the Signor garbed in green, 



