SOLOMON'S LITTLE PEOPLE.

CHAPTER I.

BUSYBODIES.

"In these beings so minute, and as it were such nonentities, what wisdom is displayed, what power, what unfathomable perfection.”— PLINY, A.D. 50.

NDER this title I purpose describing something of the natural history of the Ant, an insect which has attracted the attention of the curious ever since the wise king of Israel for wisdom. It was new thing under the

directed every sluggard to go to it Solomon who said, "There is no sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us." And you will say this of my story, and perhaps remind me of another saying of the same wise man, "Be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness to the flesh."

Solomon is true; his wisdom is proverbial; but he lived nearly three thousand years ago, and since his time what

strange discoveries have been made, and how many of these are owing to what is to be found in Nature's great picture-book!

Like a kaleidoscope, you may turn its wonderful pages over and over again, and every time get a different view of the same thing. Every lover of the true and beautiful sees something which others have overlooked; and so it is that I gather up, and then scatter, not only the wisdom of others not generally known, but illustrate it by my own experience.

Let me make clear my meaning. You will find among the Proverbs these words, "There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise the ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer." These words, truly, are not Solomon's own, but his friend's; but can you doubt that, placed as they are amongst Solomon's proverbs, they were considered as borrowed by Agur from the king?

"The ants are a people:" it is a remarkable expression; a "little people"-not a strong people, but a wise people. I made this remark before a number of entomologists at a scientific meeting not long ago, calling attention to the resemblance of the wisdom of the ant to the wisdom of the man; when one who had made the study of insects the great work of his life declared frankly that he had never thought of that before-how exactly the ants, of all animals, deserved the name of " a people."

Have you not sometimes wondered why Solomon directed attention to the ant in preference to the bee, as a model of that which is wise? Wisdom, you know, was what he asked for, coveting that beyond gold and silver, as being the most precious then as it has ever been. He knew how to appreciate wisdom wherever it should be found. There is no doubt that he must often have observed the bees humming their merry hymns in his garden on the sunny slopes of Mount Zion, because he often speaks of honey

and the honeycomb; then how is it that out of the four things referred to as teachers of wisdom, although three out of the four are insects, the ant is preferred to the bee?

I think I have discovered the reason. Amongst the thousand and one things I can remember of the Great Exhibition in Hyde Park in 1862, is one which produced so strong an impression on my mind, that while I can remember anything I am sure I shall remember that. Standing on a good-sized table, and measuring about six feet in length by about half the width, was a beautiful model of Lincoln Cathedral. My thoughts of this model and the lesson it taught me were something like those of one who wrote a description of the grand old building itself, who said, "The first view of Lincoln Cathedral obtained by the approaching traveller is something to remember for a lifetime."

And the story of the Norman founder, who came over with William the Conqueror, is not altogether unlike the story of the modeler; of both, the historian's description of the architect holds good, "His mind exerted itself to excel and shine," for not only was Remigius the founder, but the builder, it being reported of him that he actually carried the stones and mortar upon his own shoulders.

This is not the place to describe the glories of the beautiful pile, with its towers and turrets, its gables and capitals, but there, in the Exhibition building, stood its model, made to scale, with all the external parts beautifully carved in-what do you think?—cork! 'And," you will say, "pray, who was the sculptor ?"

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Standing by the model was a working man, his coat off, his apron on; upon the table lay the worn-out remains of two old knives, and a stone very much the worse for wear, upon which they had been sharpened. He was an agricultural labourer; and this poor working man had employed all the spare hours, after working during the day in the