202 
THE BEAUTIFUL LADDER. 
this common vegetable can testify. Its shape 
is not ungraceful, and the wings are strikingly 
beautiful; but it should be only looked at, not 
meddled with, as its odor is most nauseously 
offensive. 
“ If, indeed, the familiar lightning-bug is with¬ 
out other attractions, he makes himself nightly 
welcome by his singular powers of illuminating 
the darkness around him; and we could sooner 
spare a more brilliant insect than miss his year¬ 
ly return to flit and glow and make radiant the 
landscape. 
“ Nature does not seem to delight in broad 
contrasts, but takes the observer by gentle tran¬ 
sitions from the kingdom of one order into the 
dominions of.another; and it is by such a gra¬ 
dation that we pass from the bugs to the Cica- 
dec. In their larval and pupa states the careless 
would be likely to class them among the former, 
but when fully developed their marked differ¬ 
ences are clearly apparent, and they are seen to 
come nearer to the great and terrible family of 
the locusts, by which name, indeed, they are 
most generally known. But look at this speci¬ 
men of the class, and it will be plainly seen 
that they have many individual characteristics. 
