153 
of the year are commonly called soldiers , and are often caught and sported with 
by children. The cockchaffers (Melolontha vulgaris) are not so numerous now 
as they have been, but one carelessly whirs by now and then, and the much 
smaller Scarbceus solstitialis now appears clustering round that half opened half 
destroyed Burnet-rose. A host of minuter insects, coleopterous and dipterous, 
animate the solar beams, and when the clouds intercept the bright rays, numbers 
may be observed resting on the leaves of plants, lurking in the broad shade of the 
trees, or even asleep in the flower-cups. 
The lovely Cowslips, late so beautiful, have all faded away, except that one tall 
tuft deep in the shade, overshadowed by the Witch-elm and its hop-like clusters ; 
and were not every primrose long ago fled, we might almost imagine that bright 
brimstone butterfly ( Gonepteryx Rhamni) was a blossom of one wafted before 
the playful breeze. The sun gleams now without a veil before him, and a host of 
azure blue butterflies appear sporting along the topmost spikes of the grass. We 
are covered with gramineous farina in chasing them, but they rise up opening their 
blue wings on every side almost as numerous as the thousand Eyebrights (Eu¬ 
phrasia officinalis), whose modest beauties, though half hid, we see at every step; 
and vieing with the caerulean of the woolly-leaved Scorpion-grass. 
But what numbers of Aphides cover the stems of the plants around us. Let 
us pause at this dock. Here the Aphides are wingless and black, and clothe the 
topmost stems of the plant like a mantlet of the ancient Romans, presenting noth¬ 
ing but their polished black armour to the attack of the enemy, so closely cling 
they to the plant. And well have they need ; for a squadron of the small red Ants 
have found them out, and though they cannot carry them off yet they have found 
a prize which will save them the trouble of foraging for some time. See how 
they are passing over the Aphids , and now stopping and moving their antennae 
about. They are regular lawyers, these Ants, and the Aphides their clients ; 
they have extracted all they can from them already, and are urging them 
for another fee, nor will they leave them till nothing further is to be obtained. 
The fact is that the excrement of the Aphis being derived from the juice of the 
plant is very sweet and clammy, and the Ants are so fond of it, that they devour it 
as fast as it is produced by the Aphides , and the supply being insufficient for the 
demand, though the Ants do not exactly, like the boy in the fable, kill the goose 
to get all the eggs at once, yet, having devoured all the honey-dew the Aphides 
have manufactured, they tickle and incite them as much as possible to produce 
more, which they immediately devour. Whatever may be urged in favour of Ants, 
in general, as an industrious and provident race, but little praise is due to those 
I am now alluding to, who are evidently idle marauders, escaped from the 
restraints of legitimate authority, and are here living an idle and luxurious life, de¬ 
pending entirely upon the labours of others. I have often wondered how Ants 
were enabled to find their way up the labyrinthine passages of tall spinous Thistles, 
VOL. i. 
x 
