4190 Insects. 



that we should be troubled with these strange flies," since there was 

 no money to be made by them ; and the " loud laugh that spoke the 

 vacant mind " has often been heard on seeing the peaceful " fly- 

 catcher," net in hand, stealing away through the bushes, or, may be, 

 chasing some prize. Nor is this quite worn out, although it is wan- 

 ing fast, and many are beginning to think that persons thus engaged 

 have really discovered more than beauty in a butterfly's wing, and 

 that the dirty disagreeable beetle must possess something which they 

 had not hitherto observed. Surely, 



" Nought so vile that on the earth doth live 

 But to the earth some special gift doth give." 



Now there are modes of obtaining many of the larger genera and 

 species which is not the case with the smaller ones ; and these are so 

 well known that I need not pause here to enumerate them, but will at 

 once proceed to some of those larvae which live inside the leaves of 

 some of the grasses. No sooner does spring begin to clothe the fields 

 in their garment of green, and revive by her grateful cares what the 

 stern hand of winter had apparently crushed for ever, and long before 

 the stately forest-trees are mantled, and their bare arms lost in the rich 

 foliage ; long before the bushes in the copses nod to each other so 

 fantastically in their summer suits ; long before the wood-banks give 

 forth their balmy breath ; these little prisoners of Providence have 

 begun their work. Stormy March, sweeping over hill and dale, 

 through wood and glade, across moor and common, down highway 

 and byway, affects them but little ; silently and ceaselessly they do 

 their work. A little examination, and but a little, even thus early, of 

 the grasses growing on dry hedge-banks, by the sides of pools, or, in 

 short, wherever grass flourisheth, will reveal traces of the paths of 

 miners down the leaves, or sufficient discolouration or other evidence 

 thereon to lead to the detection of the cause of these injuries. The 

 leaf requires only to be pulled up, and held between the eye and the 

 light, when its occupant may be seen, if it has not left for another 

 tenement. 



Any one might hastily be apt to think that there could be no vari- 

 ation in the methods of mining, — that such narrow houses could 

 never admit of any digression from a regular rule. Thi|, however, is 

 not the case. Some of these larva) carry with them the whole breadth 

 of the leaf in their passage, and never enter the stem ; while others, 

 again, make a passage in the leaf, just sufficient for their bodies to 

 pass down, then another passage, and finally penetrate far down into 



