-in search of blood-to attach themselves to his legs, from which he gathered them as he felt their bite! The wretched man passed the greater part of his life in this manner, breathing the noxious vapours of the marsh, cramped by cold, shaken by ague, hollow-eyed, solitary, and pitiable; the more pitiable, somehow, because the man's pursuit was a profitable one to him, and therefore one which he would not willingly have quitted."

Frank noticed that we were again very silent, and cried with a hearty laugh:

"Hallo!—why, I've stepped from one unpleasant topic to another-like the eel that stepped out of the fryingpan into the fire! Here's something more lively coming! Look out Bob."

CHAPTER XII.

BOB BRINGS DOWN A COCKCHAFER, AND LETS IT DEPART WITHOUT A BLESSING-WE ALL CONFESS THAT WE ARE HUNGRY AND LEAVE THE WONDER-FIELD, TAKING NOTICE OF A FLY WHO SEEMS DETERMINED TO GO HOME WITH US.

BOB's cap was in his hand, and Bob was tearing with it half-way across the field in a moment, shouting:

"Cock-cock-cock-Cockchafer!

If you don't come I'll have yer !

A spring into the air, a buffet with his cap, a scramble in the grass, and then Bob shouted triumphantly: "I've got him!-Such a beauty!"

"I'm glad you didn't call out for a pin," said Frank,

L

"or I should have been inclined to give you one-stuck into your back."

"I know what you mean, Frank," said Bob; "but I never ran a pin through a Cockchafer to make him spinand never would."

"That's right, Bob. No pleasure that gives pain is worth having," replied Frank. "If I were asked whether I would consent to the extermination of the entire race of Cockchafers, I'm afraid that I should consent without hesitation, for there seems really nothing to be said in their favour, except that they are as wonderful as any other created thing, and have the right of all living

COCKCHAFER.

things-to live according to their nature. But the Cock chafer is a true pest, and the amount of injury he does is beyond computation. Natural enemies he has in plenty, who help to thin his numbers; but nothing stands against his attacks when he bands himself with myriads of his

kind; the fields are then his, and he uses his power to lay them waste. It is not the perfect insect that does the worst part of this terrible mischief; for the life of the mature Cockchafer lasts only about a week. When the female is ready to lay her eggs, she burrows into the ground to the depth of six or eight inches, and there lays from one to two hundred eggs. When she has done this she returns for a few days to the upper earth and dies, as her husband has, most likely, done before her. In fourteen days the eggs which she has laid are hatched into little

DAMAGE DONE BY COCKCHAFERS.

147

whitish grubs, each with six feet, placed near the head, and armed with a pair of strong jaws. These are the little monsters that commit the desperate ravages of which I have told you, and they are three years in reaching their perfected state. During these three years they prey upon the roots of the growing corn and grass above them. There are records of the frightful damage done by them in various localities. So far back as the year fifteen hundred and seventy-four, it is stated that, in that year, such immense numbers of Cockchafers were driven into the river Severn that their bodies choked the mills and prevented them from being worked. In seventeen hundred and fifty-one, many crops were totally destroyed by these insects, especially in the county of Norfolk. A field of grass has, in the course of a few weeks, been seen to dry. and become as brittle as hay, from the roots having been eaten away by the Cockchafer-grub. Cockchafers, on all these accounts are, therefore not, to my mind, the most estimable of insects."

Bob seemed to be of Frank's mind, for he pitched up into the air the Cockchafer he was holding, and his only parting salutation was :—

"Be off with you!

"Yes-be off with you!" said Frank, "and don't tell anybody that we didn't say our worst of you before your face! And now, boys-I don't know how you feel-I shan't be sorry when dinner-time is reached; in fact I'm as hungry as a hunter. What do you say to saying goodbye to my Wonder-Field?"

We all said we were ready, if he liked to start for home. "I think we've found some curious things here-as I thought we should-eh?" he inquired, archly.

"Oh yes!" cried Bob-"it's been jolly! If we only had you to come out with us every day, to tell us all about everything"

"You'd never learn anything for yourself-would you?" said Frank.

Bob hardly knew how to take what Frank said, and I myself didn't at the moment quite see the drift of his question.

"Never mind my side hits, Bob-I'm practising for a lawyer and learning to give floorers of that sort. What I mean is, that you must learn to run alone as quickly as you can; and when we get back I'll give you a story to read that will help you to see the direction I want you to run in. The story is called "Eyes and No Eyes"-and it would not be a bad thing to do, if all of you were to set to work and see which of you could first commit the whole of it to memory."

We had by this time left the Wonder-Field, and were going along the lanes that led to our school-home, all of us in splendid spirits, and, like Frank, as hungry as hunters.

"Look at this Fly," said Frank; "the pertinacious fellow insists upon taking a ride on my coat in spite of anything I can do to get rid of him! Let's see if I can frighten him away by telling him what a surprisinglyformed and intelligent creature he is!"

The notion made us all laugh, and we pressed closely on Frank's steps to listen to his curious experiment.

"In the first place," said Frank, addressing the Fly, "Decker, the noble Elizabethan dramatist—'honest old Decker,' as Hazlitt called him-has drawn a surprisingly

fine simile from your peculiarly wild behaviour. Describing the different inmates of a madhouse, he says:

"There are madmen, as there are tame,

All humour'd not alike. We have here some

So apish and fantastic, will play with a feather;
And though 'twould grieve a soul to see God's image
So blemish'd and defaced, yet do they act

Such antic and such pretty lunacies,

That, spite of sorrow, they will make you smile.
Others, again, we have like hungry lions,

Fierce as wild bulls, untameable as flies.'

What do you say to that, Master Fly? Nothing? Very well: wait a bit!-and I'll tell you as much as I can recollect of the wonderful account given of you by a gentleman-Samuelson by name-who examined you from every point of view-cut you up, turned you inside out, counted every hair and nerve in your body, found out that you bore some resemblance to the Earth-Worm, and magnified parts of you till they looked tremendous enough to have frightened him from having anything more to do with you! You are not properly a House-Fly, but, for your audacity, I shall speak of you as if you were one. Does not that frighten you? Very well. Listen-if your antennæ, or horns, are really serviceable to you as ears, as many say they are. Now look out for your eyes! You have five in all, two great goggles in the front sides of your head, and three smaller ones placed in a triangle on the top of it. In your two larger eyes there are just four thousand complete organs of vision, each with its nerve communicating with your brain, and conveying thither perfect images of all your visual impressions. I have a good mind to tell you how clearly it has been decided that your brain is not muddled by the simultaneous receipt of