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we are as 'flowers withered.' It may be that from such thoughts arose the customs of strewing flowers around the dead, and planting them on the graves of loved friends. The poets frequently allude to these simple rites, formerly much more prevalent in England than now. Shakspeare has the following beautiful passage :— With fairest flowers,

Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele,

I'll sweeten thy sad grave: thou shalt not lack
The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor
The azur'd harebell, like thy veins; no, nor

The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander,
Outsweeten'd not thy breath.

Milton, also, on the death of his friend Lycidas, calls upon the 'low valleys' to

Bring the rathe* primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crow-toe, and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,

And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,

To strew the laureate hearse where Lycid lies.

Flowers teach us many lessons, of which the most important is that our life is but a span

Flowers of the field, how meet ye seem
Man's frailty to portray,

Blooming so fair on morning's beam,

Passing at eve away;

Teach this, and oh! though brief your reign,

Sweet flowers, ye shall not live in vain.

And say, that He who from the dust

Recalls the slumbering flower,

Will surely visit those who trust

His mercy and His power;

Will mark where sleeps their peaceful clay,
And roll, ere long, the stone away.t

Early: hence rather, which originally meant sooner.

+ Blackwood's Magazine.

And we cannot do better than finish what we have to say about flowers, with the words of Allan Cunningham:-

There is a lesson in each flower,
A story in each stream and bower;
On every herb o'er which we tread,
Are written words which, rightly read,
Will lead us from earth's fragrant sod,
To hope, and holiness, and God.

INSECTS.

AMONG the many wonders of God's power and wisdom that we constantly see around us in nature, few more forcibly illustrate the Creator's watchful care over even the minutest of His creatures than the provision made for the wants of insects. No power save the Almighty's could call into being such myriads of small living forms,

Their wings with azure, green, and purple glossed,
Studded with coloured eyes, with gems embossed,
Inlaid with pearl, and marked with various stains
Of lively crimson, through their dusky veins.

It is during the summer season that the insect tribes are in full activity. Then

Ten thousand forms! ten thousand different tribes!
People the blaze. To sunny waters some

By fatal instinct fly; where on the pool
They sportive wheel, or, sailing down the stream,
Are snatch'd immediate by the quick-eyed trout,
Or darting salmon. Through the greenwood glade
Some love to stray; there lodged, amused, and fed,
In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make
The meads their choice, and visit every flower,
And every latent herb; and where to wrap,
In what soft beds, their young yet undisclosed,
Employs their tender care. Some to the house,
The fold, the dairy, hungry, bend their flight;
Sip round the pail, or taste the curdling cheese;
Oft, inadvertent, from the milky stream,
They meet their fate; or, weltering in the bowl,
With powerless wings around them wrapt, expire.

Everyone is familiar with the gay butterflies flitting across the sunbeam's track;' and the first sight of one is generally hailed as a sign of continued fine weather. On the butterfly the poet Rogers wrote―

Child of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight,
Mingling with her thou lov'st in fields of light;
And where the flowers of paradise unfold,
Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold:
There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky,
Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!

Yet wert thou once a worm-a thing that crept
On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb, and slept!
And such is man; soon from his cell of clay

To burst a seraph in the blaze of day!

Wonderful indeed are the transformations which many insects must undergo ere they arrive at maturity. Just before the female dies, she deposits her eggs in the spot most suitable for the nourishment of the young as soon as they are hatched. From each egg there comes forth, not an insect, but a grub or caterpillar. This grows very rapidly, eating very voraciously; and several times it casts its skin so as to admit of the increase

in size of its body. As soon as the grub is fully grown, it changes into a chrysalis, in which state it is encased in a horny skin; it is then without limbs, and has no power of moving. In due time the perfect insect bursts forth. It is very interesting for boys and girls to watch some of these changes for themselves, which they may do by obtaining and keeping any common caterpillar, taking care to supply it with abundance of proper food.

Some insects are quite models of industry and order, foremost amongst which stands the busy bee. From our earliest childhood we are advised to follow its example. It is out, toiling hard, early and late.' Southey writes:

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Thou wert out betimes, thou busy, busy bee!

As abroad I took my early way,

Before the cow from her resting-place
Had risen up, and left her trace

On the meadow, with dew so gray,

Saw I thee, thou busy, busy bee.

Thou wert working late, thou busy, busy bee!
After the fall of the cistus flower,

When the primrose of evening was ready to burst,
I heard thee last, as I saw thee first;
In the silence of the evening hour,
Heard I thee, thou busy, busy bee.

The name of 'innocent pilferer' has been applied to the bee-a title to which most other insects can lay no claim whatever: for while they generally are most destructive, the bee does no perceptible injury to the flowers it attacks. Cowper writes on this guiltless honey-stealer :

Not a flower can be found in the fields,

Or the spot that we till for our pleasure,
From the largest to least, but it yields
The bee, never wearied, a treasure.
Scarce any she quits unexplored,
With a diligence truly exact;
Yet, steal what she may for her hoard,
Leaves evidence none of the fact.

Her lucrative task she pursues,

And pilfers with so much address,
That none of their odour they lose,
Nor charm by their beauty the less.

Shakspeare has a famous passage on the honey bees, in which they are represented as teaching the act of order to a peopled kingdom.'

They have a king, and officers of sorts:

Where some, like magistrates, correct at home;
Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad;
Others, like soldiers, armèd in their stings,
Make boot upon the summer's velvet buds;

Which pillage they with merry march bring home
To the tent-royal of their emperor ;

Who, busied in his majesty, surveys

The singing masons building roofs of gold;
The civil citizens kneading up the honey;
The poor mechanic porters crowding in
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate;
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum
Delivering o'er to executors pale
The lazy yawning drone.

Besides the hive-bee and the humble-bee, there are others, to which different names have been given, such as the rose-cutter, the carpenter, and the mason. Each species has its own peculiar habits, from which it derives its name.

The ant or emmet is another example of industry and forethought. Dr. Watts takes occasion to teach us a lesson from the habits of these insects.

These emmets, how little they are in our eyes!
We tread them to dust, and a troop of them dies,
Without our regard or concern:

Yet as wise as we are, if sent to their school,
There's many a sluggard and many a fool
Some lessons of wisdom might learn.

They don't wear their time out in sleeping or play,
But gather up corn on a sunshiny day,

And for winter they lay up their stores;

They manage their work in such regular forms,

One would think they foresaw all the frosts and the storms,
And so brought their food within doors.

Insects are often both useful and profitable. What a source of wealth, for example, is there in the bee, the silkworm, the cochineal and gall insects, and the blisterfly. But, on the other hand, it would be scarcely possible to enumerate those which may be rightly termed injurious either to man himself or to the products of the earth. Among such may be mentioned the gad-fly, the devouring locust, the turnip-fly, the terrible tsetse of Central Africa, and the myriads that ravage our forests, gardens, and orchards, often killing the mighty trees, and causing bitter disappointment to our hopes of fair flowers and ripe fruit. Gardeners wage a war of extermination against all insect intruders on their domains, and sometimes, in ignorance, even on such as are positively beneficial to them; for example, on the lady-bird (commonly known in some counties as the cow-lady). This cow-lady devours the aphides, very small insects, which, unchecked, commit dreadful havoc in the orchard, the garden, and the hop-ground. It has been said that insects, puny creatures though they be, are far more injurious to man-far more

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