turned, till it got the girth three rings nearer the head, about the middle of the wing-cases; the skin was so soft and the silk so slender, that it cut into the wing-cases, so far as to be invisible, but no ill resulted from this circumstance to the perfect butterfly.

4. The newly transformed chrysalis is soft, with the skin

materially alters its form. Some of its segments contract and condense, prominent angles appear, the skin roughens and becomes very rigid, and the creature has assumed the condition in which it will pass a sort of torpid vegetative existence, through some ten months.

5. When the period of second birth approaches, it is manifested by a change in the appearance of the chrysalis. The skin becomes very thin and fragile, and, for some days before the exclusion, the colors, spots, and marks of the perfect butterfly are distinctly perceptible through the transparent integument, but all in miniature. At length the hour arrives; the chrysalis, which for some hours has appeared uneasy, wriggling, and apparently inflating its body, succeeds in splitting the thin and brittle skin of the back. The imprisoned butterfly pushes out; the head with its palpi and antennæ and its spiral tongue, and the legs, are all drawn out of their several sheaths, the latter

limbs are thrown forward, and the insect stands on them, weak and staggering. It rests a moment or two, then proceeds; the painted wings now appear, minute and hanging against the sides like wet paper, but perfect in their colors and markings. The butterfly is free!

6. It essays to lift its wings, but these organs, all soft and flabby as they are, are utterly unfit for flight. But see, a change is com

ing over them! They are swelling irregularly, crumpling up, puckering into folds here and there, as their vessels are distending with fluids from the body. They look hopelessly spoiled. Though small at first, they were at least symmetrical; but now they look like pieces of wet paper crushed up in the hand and partially opened, and the further the work proceeds the worse it appears to grow. But by and by, they begin to become smooth and even again; the distension and expansion have reached to every part, and wings of full size and perfect form are developed, still, however, soft, flaccid, and pendent.

7. A quarter of an hour more removes this defect; the elegant organs momentarily acquire rigidity; at length the insect can raise them to an erect position. As soon as this is attained, the beautiful creature marches to and fro, testing the capabilities of its organs, and perhaps accustoming itself, by repeatedly opening and shutting its wings, to the practice of those muscular movements on the force and precision of which its flight will depend. At length it launches into the air, and sails away to the flowers, a happy denizen of a new element.

GOSSE.

So work the honey bees;

Creatures that by a rule in nature teach
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.

SHAKESPEARE

1. THE sufferings of the lower animals may, when out of sight, be out of mind. But, more than this, these sufferings may be in sight, and yet out of mind. This is strikingly exemplified in the sports of the field, in the midst of whose varied and animating bustle that cruelty which all along is present to the senses may not for one moment have been present to the thoughts.

2. There sits a somewhat ancestral dignity and glory on this favorite pastime of joyous old England; when the gallant knighthood, and the hearty yeomen, and the amateurs or virtuosos of the chase, and the full assembled jockeyship of half a province, muster together in all the pride and pageantry of their great emprise; and the panorama of some noble landscape, lighted up with autumnal clearness from an unclouded heaven, pours fresh exhilaration into every blithe and choice spirit of the scene; and every adventurous heart is braced and impatient for the hazards of the coming enterprise; and even the highbreathed coursers catch the general sympathy, and seem to fret in all the restiveness of their yet checked and irritated fire, till the echoing horn shall set them at liberty, even that horn which is the knell of death to some trembling victim now brought forth out of its lurking-place to the delighted gaze, and borne down upon with the full and open cry of its ruthless pursuers.

3. Be assured that, amid the whole glee and fervency of this tumultuous enjoyment, there might not, in one single bosom, be aught so fiendish as a principle of naked and abstract cruelty. The fear which gives its lightning speed to the unhappy animal; the thickening horrors which, in the progress of exhaustion, must gather upon its flight; its gradually sinking energies, and at length the terrible certainty of that destruction which is awaiting it; that piteous cry which the ear can sometimes distinguish amid the deafening clamor of the blood-hounds as they spring exultingly upon their prey; the dread massacre and dying agonies of a creature so miserably torn, all this weight of suffering, we admit, is not once sympathized with, but it is just because the suffering itself is not once thought of.