golden net-work on dark green velvet, each of its thousands of eyes sparkling with the brilliancy of the finest diamond -we may count one hundred of these antennal divisions. And its wings. "Lace-wing," indeed!-pray let us place a piece of the very finest lace under the microscope with an ordinary magnifying power and then compare it with

Antennæ of Insects: 1, Cockchafer; 2, 3-5, 7, various ordinary insects; 6, the House Fly; 8, Gnat; 9, Silkworm Moth.

the wing of the fly. Behold! the wing is infinitely finer to the eye even when magnified than the lace, while the lace when equally magnified is considerably coarser than the door-mat.

Such difference is there between the works of God and those of man.

Now, the larva of the lace-wing fly is a most earthly creature, a grotesque grub, feeding upon plant lice, and suggesting in its wonderful transformation-what?

I reminded you that in his remarks upon the antennæ of Sir John Lubbock's ants, Professor Tyndall gave them the original name of "microscopical stethoscopes; " that would imply they were organs connected with hearing. Atmospheric impressions are certainly received by insects as sensibly as they are by us: a honey bee always anticipates the weather; the cockchafer has antennæ as compound as its eight thousand eyes (in each of which I can show you your own portrait), spread out, when in use, like a lady's fan, in five or six leaf-like appendages; it is closed like a fan when alarmed.

Mr. Gosse tells us that after the alarm is over this insect pauses, widely opens the leaves of its antennæ, then, after an instant's pause to test the perceptions, away it travels.

What suggestions are offered by such wonders in the natural kingdom as we have here! What possibilities are within us!

You may take any insect you like: here is the honey bee, there the house fly, there again the house cricket, here the male gnat. Compare them with the ant, you will observe not one is like the other; and, in their variety, what harmony!

I said there was a trinity in everything. Doesn't it appear so in this wonderful part of an insect's body? In the honey bee's tongue we saw a combination of trowels, scissors, and brush; here is an instrument combining the barometer, the telephone, and the telegraph-and "these three are one."

The curious uses to which these remarkable instruments are applied will suggest to us that in the imago, or perfect image of a fly, there is an amount of instinct given far surpassing the intelligence of many men, and that was what Solomon's friend meant when he said, "The ants are a people not strong, yet are they exceeding wise."

CHAPTER IV.

MEMORY.

"The powers of memory are twofold. They consist in the actual reminiscence or recollection of past events, and in the power of retaining what they have learned in such a manner that it can be called into remembrance as occasions present themselves or circumstances may require."-COGAN.

AVE I wearied you in antennal philosophy?

Let us come to the practical part.

An entomological friend, for whom I have the greatest regard, assured me of the truth

of the following story:

He went from London to Gravesend to catch nightflying moths; some, in particular, being very fond of the woods in that neighbourhood. He caught the female he went in search of, and he secured his prize in a box, which he deposited in his coat pocket. He came from Gravesend to London Bridge by steamboat, thence he walked to his house in the City Road: all the way from one end of the journey to the other he was followed by several male flies, who were courting the lady in his pocket.

Now, will you tell me how this was done? Shall I tell you?

I cannot; but this novel experiment is familiar, in a more or less practical kind, to every entomologist, and I might repeat many instances of the extraordinary power possessed by nocturnal moths of following and detecting their mates in the dark.

The explanation is beyond us; it is the supernatural in nature again. Do we leave our impressions behind us: and may other eyes than ours see them?

Again we exclaim, what possibilities are within us!

Mr. Coleman, in his charming little book on "British Butterflies," says: "Investigators have perhaps erred by assuming, at the outset, that antennæ must be organs of some sense that we ourselves possess; whereas I think that there is much evidence to show that insects are gifted with a certain subtle sense for which we have no name, and of which we can have as little real idea as we could have had of the faculty of sight had all the world been born blind.

"For example; if you breed from the chrysalis a female Kentish Glory moth, and then immediately take her-in a closed box, mind—out into her native woods, within a short space of time an actual crowd of male Glories' come and fasten upon or hover over the prison-house of the coveted maiden. Without this magic attraction you might walk in these same woods for a whole day and not see a single specimen, the Kentish Glory' being generally reputed a very rare moth; while so many as some 120 have been thus decoyed to their capture in a few hours by the charms of a couple of lady Glories' shut up in a box.

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Now, which of our five senses, I would ask—even if developed with extraordinary acuteness in the insectwould account for such an exhibition of clairvoyance as this ?" And the author then adds, "May not, then, this undiscovered sense, whatever may be its nature, reside in the antennæ ? for it is a remarkable fact, that the very moths, such as the Kentish Glory, &c., which

display the above-mentioned phenomenon most signally, have the antenna in the males amplified with numerous spreading branches, so as to present an unusually large sensitive surface. This seems to point to some connection between these organs and the faculty of discovering the presence, and even the condition, of one of their own race, with more, perhaps, than a mile of distance and the sides of a wooden box intervening between themselves and their object."

It is very clear that "there are more things on earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy;" but now you will be prepared for my ant stories, drawn from life.

The first of these I owe to my friend the late Rev. W. Faithful, Vicar of Cheshunt. Walking in his garden there he observed the gardener had made a rut in a path with the wheel of his barrow. Down this rut an ant was toiling and tugging with what to it was a ponderous log of wood, with which to contribute in the building of its distant house. With a view of watching what an animal so remarkable for perseverance would do if baulked in its object, he stopped up the rut some distance before the worker ant could reach it, making a heap of dirt appear to the insect what an Alp would do to you or me.

The ant tugged on with its load till it reached the mountain, then it paused and considered what was best to be done; then it left the load, giving it up, as you would have supposed, not feeling disposed to venture across such an object with such a weight. Ah no! it went to its fellow-ants; then quicker and quicker went their antennæ it was an evident invitation for help; then several came, shoulder to shoulder endeavouring to get the log up the hill, but all in vain; till at last several went in search of more, and their united strength at last succeeded.

Here you will see what should interest you in nature, and instruct you in duty.