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But the love of the uncommon was already asserting itself; and one of his very juvenile projects was a collection of rare creatures, the first contribution to which was a couple of lady-birds, picked up one winter's day on a wall and immediately consigned to a box lined with cotton-wool, and labelled, 'Animals found surviving in the depths of a severe winter. Nor did curiosity in this case weaken the power of sympathy.
I confess, that, when a few days after my perusal of this passage, I heard of the multitude of lady-birds seen in Kent, I began to imagine that these were the fatal insects, by which the island was to be laid waste, and, therefore, looked over all accounts of them with uncommon concern.
When she was little more than an infant it was a pleasure to her to catch flies, to pull off their wings, and maim them entirely. She used, when somewhat older, to take lady-birds and beetles, stick them all upon a pin, then put a large leaf or a piece of paper close to their feet, so that the poor things held fast to it, and turned and twisted in their endeavours to get off the pin.
That rarest of insects, the praying mantis, has just dropped upon my paper. I am thankful that, not being an entomologist, I am dispensed from the sacred duty of impaling the lovely green creature who sits there, looking quite wise and human. Fussy little brown beetles, as big as two lady-birds, keep flying into my eyes, and the musquitoes are rejoicing loudly in the prospect of a feast.
Beetles were there hard, round, polished, and of various colours, like sea-worn pebbles on the beach; and some, called lady-birds in the vernacular, were bound like the books that Chaucer loved in black and red.
I hate the foxes, with their bushy brushes, that ever come at evening, and eat the grapes of Micon. Lacon. And I hate the lady-birds that devour the figs of Philondas, and flit down the wind. Comatas. Dost thou not remember how I cudgelled thee, and thou didst grin and nimbly writhe, and catch hold of yonder oak? Lacon.
There have been cases in which children, and even adults, have held grasshoppers, crickets, or lady-birds to their ears in order to more attentively listen to the noise, and while in this position the insects have escaped and penetrated the auditory canal. Insects often enter the ears of persons reposing in the fields with the ear to the ground.
Why did I? with its complement of four poor elms, from whose smoke-dyed barks, the theme of jesting ruralists, I picked my first lady-birds! My heart is as dry as that spring sometimes proves in a thirsty August, when I revert to the space that is between us; a length of passage enough to render obsolete the phrases of our English letters before they can reach you.
"Lady Bird" Nursey called Lota, because when, six years before, Papa fetched her home from China, she wore a speckled frock of orange-red and black, very much the color of those other tiny frocks in which the real lady-birds fly about in summer-time.
"Won't it be fun?" "It will for me," said the little old lady. "And I need to have a good time. I am getting old before my time for lack of amusement. And now, my lady-birds, who else shall we invite to the house party?" "Who else?" said Grace, somewhat crestfallen; for four intimate girl chums are invariably jealous of admitting other girls to the charmed circle.
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