cast, the grub has none of the black spots which before distinguished it; the warts and black hairs are present, but the warts are colorless: the head is clear as glass, and the two black eyes, so conspicuous in the egg and newly-hatched grub, are again visible. In about twenty minutes the black spots begin to appear, and in about four hours become as distinct and the head as black as before the moult. When the grub has regained its colour, it again begins to eat, and eats away night and day without stopping for four or five days more. It then sickens again for the last moult, and this is performed in the same way as the first; but this time the spots, warts and bristles are cast with the skin, and appear no more. The grub is now of a pale delicate green colour, except the yellow patch near each end, which it still retains. It has now done with eating when hard enough and strong enough after this last moult, it marches to the stem of the bush, and quietly descends till it reaches the earth: sometimes it crawls along a hanging branch and drops from the extremity. "The object of gaining the earth is to burrow beneath its surface; and as soon as the grub once feels the soil, he begins forcing his way into it head foremost, after the fashion of a mole. When he is deep enough to answer his purpose, the depth varying, by the way, from two to eight inches, according to the hardness or lightness of the soil, he makes a little oblong cell in the earth, and therein spins or constructs a tough black cocoon, attached all round to the walls of the cell: although I say spins, the material he uses is not silk or thread, but something between silk and glue, or what we might suppose to arise from the hardening of fluid silk, an illustration rather of the uncouthest, but, for want of a better, it must go. In this cocoon or case he disposes himself to await the change to a chrysalis, and soon after to a fly. "The time occupied in this round of existence is very variable; many of the eggs laid in May, before the middle of the month produce grubs that go through every change, and are on the wing by the 24th of June; and eggs laid about that day will go through their changes as far as the cocoon by the 10th of July, or 15th at latest; the first brood thus taking about twenty-eight days, and the second generally remaining under ground till the next spring. It is not, however, clear that in all instances this insect has two broods: on the contrary, I am nearly certain that many of the late hatches never reproduce during the year; but the time of their first appearance is so variable that a constant succession is kept up, the earliest having reproduced before the later hatches are gone down." H § IV. THE FIELDS. "Ye field flowers! the gardens eclipse you, 'tis true, Yet, wildings of Nature, I dote upon you, For ye waft me to summers of old, When the earth teem'd around me with fairy delight, Like treasures of silver and gold." CAMPBELL. FIELDS! there is music in the very word. To whom does it not recall flowers and bees, sunshine and butterflies, the shade of trees, the songs of birds, the flitting clouds, the freshening showers, the scent of grass, the murmuring of a brook, and all the thousand sights and sounds that make up the charms of the country? Who does not remember the well-trodden paths, and the little-explored ways, and especially the associations connected with them, not omitting the friends whose company gave the climax to enjoyment? Happy are they who have such reminiscences, happier still should they be who have such pleasures constantly within their reach! Yet I venture to say that none but a naturalist can thoroughly appreciate or fully enjoy the country. The scenes that so delight the multitude and enrapture the poets are to them but vague generalities; "seeing they see not, neither do they understand;" while, to the naturalist, who knows something of the why and because of the various manifestatations of life, is superadded a distinct and greater pleasure: from his point of view everything stands out in relief without impairing the general effect, and although the individual forms of the various vegetables and animals he meets have never before gladdened his eyes, yet they stand before him as old familiar faces, or as friends whose acquaintance he will be glad to make. Entomology, on account of the number of beings whose life and ways it presents to notice, has peculiar charms for the rambler in the fields, and I proceed to point out a few of the more prominent of its productions in this section. Of our field insects those that attract universal attention are the grasshoppers. All day long, during the hottest weather, when almost every other living thing is glad to be quiet, do these merry little fellows, or rather, I should say, the males only, fizz away in a tuft of grass. Poets say they sing; to my ears the sound is rather too monotonous and wanting in timbre to deserve the name of song; but as the love of Nature in the poets has no doubt made them thus courteous to these insect-performers, I will not argue upon the propriety of the term. Probably also the female portion of the grasshopper community is pleased with the stridulation: another reason why poets and I should not disagree about the matter. That the H 2 gallants among the grasshoppers are at times inspired to please their lady-loves with dancing as well as music seems certain. I have heard a story, told by a celebrated Orthopterist, that one day, when studying the habits of his favourites in the field, he saw a male approach the grassy bower of a female, ascend a stem, as would a Romeo to the lattice of his Juliet, suspend himself by one leg so as to bring himself full into her view, and then, changing sides, swing by the other leg before her: of the first of these advances the lady took no notice, but the second proof of devotion won her heart. Leigh Hunt has addressed one of his few, delightful sonnets "To the Grasshopper and the Cricket." Would that he had written more on subjects that have a special interest for naturalists! "Green little vaulter in the sunny grass, "Oh, sweet and tiny cousins that belong, One to the fields the other to the hearth, Both have your sunshine; both, though small, are strong At your clear hearts; and both seem given to earth To ring in thoughtful ears this natural song— In doors and out, summer and winter, Mirth." |