fields, on the edges of the woods, on the borders of the streams, on the sides of the roads, in the corners of the fences, and in every place where one is accustomed to see it. There are shrubs, herbs, and weeds, in abundance; but none of them can supply the place of that soft, rich, velvety verdure, whose hue so delights the eye. It is true there is a native grass, which gives a good deal of trouble. One of the chief employments of the field-slaves during summer is, by hoeing between the rows of cotton, to destroy the grass; and one of the most common complaints among the planters is that the grass is getting the upper hand of them. But it is a singular species, called Crowfoot-grass (Cynodon dactylon), bearing four or five diverging fingers or ears at the top of the stalk; a gaunt-looking plant, with sparse leaves, and apparently having no tendency to make a turf, at least under our burning sun. In winter, rye is sown for the cattle, and other substitutes for pasture are found; and, after harvest, those planters who raise a field of oats or wheat turn them into the stubble: this, however, affords but sorry picking; and at this season of the year the poor cows are very lean, and doubtless often go hungry. I missed the green grass very much when I came first.

When I see any insect, bird, or flower, that I have been familiar with in other regions, it affords me feelings of peculiar pleasure. The other day one of the children brought me that elegant and delicate little creature, the Star Crane-fly (Bittacomorpha crassipes), an insect common to Newfoundland, Canada, and this extreme. I looked on it quite as an old acquaintance, with feelings almost like personal friendship.

In the school-yard there are several towering oak-trees left for the purpose of shade. Examining the trunks of these the first day I saw them-which, as a good entomologist and true, I was bound to do-I found in one several round holes about half an inch in diameter, as if made by an auger; and from one projected the pupa-skin of some very large moth, being near three inches long. Some days after I found another in a similar situation, and after that another. As my curiosity was roused, I procured an axe, and with a young man began to cut away some of the wood of the tree, exposing many passages filled with excrement, and some of them lined with web. We at length exposed two very large caterpillars, one of which we unfortunately cut in two, as we also did a pupa nearly matured, about two and a-half inches long. The remaining caterpillar was very wary, and I nearly lost my patience in trying to get hold of him. I had to chop very

cautiously for fear of cutting him through like the others; and as fast as his hole was exposed, he retired further in: sometimes he would poke his tail just out; but on my touching him, he would instantly draw back. At last I managed to outwit him, in this way: I began to batter the opposite side of the tree with the poll of the axe, and was pleased to see that at every blow he gave a start, projecting his hinder part farther and farther out of the hole, when I suddenly seized him with my fingers, and, maugre his utmost efforts and strong struggles, dragged him from his fortress into daylight.

I found it was the larva of a species of Cossus, very much like that of the Goat-moth of Europe, about three inches in length, of a livid-reddish hue, thinly scattered over with fine hairs, with a hard, horny, deep-brown head. He was very fierce, seizing my hand with his jaws whenever I attempted to touch him, and jerking round his head with great spitefulness. It crawled very swiftly. I could not find that it had the sense of sight; for fierce and resentful as it was, when I placed my finger before it, even close to its head, it took not the least notice; but if I touched but the tip of one of the hairs, then it instantly raised its head and stretched open its jaws. Indeed, spending its life immured in the centre of a tree, sight would be perfectly useless to it. I did not detect the strong and subtile odour which distinguishes its European congener.

The economy of this and similar insects is curious. The egg is laid by the parent moth, on or beneath the bark of a living tree. The larva, as soon as hatched, eats its narrow passage into the heart, living on the particles of wood which it abrades. Of course its ejecta fill up the cell behind as fast as it proceeds, and thus it has no alternative but to go forward. Indeed, were it not so, it could not retrace its steps; for the diameter of the chamber is always but just sufficient for it to move comfortably in; and as it increases in size, it of course makes a wider passage; therefore, the excavation which contained it yesterday, would to-day be too strait to admit it.

This species appears to be slower of growth than most caterpillars, taking two or three years to attain its full size. Before it goes into the pupa state, it either opens the passage into the air or (which I think more probable) leaves an extremely slight lamina of wood unperceived at the very extremity, which the pupa can break with its head, or perhaps dissolve with some secreted fluid. From my finding the pupa in the heart of the tree, I presume that

it waits until the time of exclusion of the perfected moth is near, before it comes to the edge; then works its way outward by means of a ring of little points directed backward, with which each segment of the body is furnished. On its arrival at the mouth, which appears (at least in all the cases I observed), to take place during the night, it projects the fore-parts until half of the insect is exposed; then the skin opens at the usual place, and the moth is evolved, leaving the empty puparium sticking in the hole.

I took the caterpillar home, and put him into a box, with some pieces of the wood of the tree; but he was sulky, and refused to eat. I kept him two or three weeks, and at last he died. I never saw him eat anything the whole time.

Here are some notes and dates, extracted literally from my journal, showing the progress of a wasp's nest :

June 2nd.-A middling-sized brown wasp (allied to Polistes) is building a comb, suspended by a pillar of the same grey papery substance, from the eaves of the school, immediately over the door. It has been recently commenced, as I have but just observed it. It has seven cells.

5th. The wasp's nest is progressing: this morning it has fifteen cells; yesterday it had thirteen. They are not all of equal depth, It appears that the wasp is not particular about finishing one cel before she commences another. The outside ones are the shallowest, however.

12th. The nest has been stationary for some days past, as regards the number of the cells; but the old wasp has been busy in rearing the young, and in covering up some of the central cells. I suppose the latter contain pupæ. How the grubs keep themselves from falling out I can't think; for the position of the cell is perpendicular, the mouth downward. I see to-day there are twenty cells, more or less advanced. The old one is almost always resting or crawling on the nest.

She is very vigilant,

always on the look-out, turns short round every now and then ; and, if a stick is raised in the air, within a couple of feet of the nest, she flies towards it in a moment, as if to attack it. But I have forbidden the boys to molest her.

14th. This morning I perceive the wasp has a comrade sitting on the nest hitherto her labours have been performed quite alone. No doubt the stranger is one of her own progeny, newly hatched from pupa.

15th. A second wasp was evolved, and on the

18th, a third; so that now four take their station on the comb,

in nowise distinguishable from each other. After this, more were successively produced, but I ceased to take any further notes.

Simultaneously with this, another operation was going on in another part of the school-house of a somewhat similar character. A large shining black Bee, very much resembling in size and appearance the beautiful Violet-bee (Xylocopa violacea) of Europe, but without the purple wings, was boring a circular hole, about one-third of an inch in diameter, in the under side of one of the logs of which the house was built. Being the first specimen of the species I had seen, I caught it and secured it for my cabinet. That was on the twelfth; but on the fourteenth I discovered to my surprise, that another bee of the same species had taken to the hole, at which she was labouring with great industry. The direction is perpendicularly upwards; and the bee gnaws away the particles of wood with her jaws, moving round and round as required. Tedious as this process seems, such was the assiduity with which she prosecuted her employment, that the hole, which had been on the previous day 11th of an inch deep, was now 1,,ths of an inch. The abraded particles of wood fall profusely, like sawdust, from this hole, and from another being bored by the same species in one of the rafters. On the 18th it had attained the depth of 1gths of an inch. When the bee is touched or otherwise molested, during her work, she does not always come out, but sets up a shrill ringing hum, very different from the common grave sound, and which every one must have noticed in any species of bee when touched. It was this sound, made by this identical bee, that the boy so felicitously designated "hollering." This by the way. One day I was surprised to see another bee of the same kind go into the hole while the owner was at home and at work; and even when she found it was preoccupied she did not seem very willing to relinquish it. I should infer from this circumstance, as well as from the readiness with which the second bee appropriated it, on the death of the first, that they do not undergo the labour of excavating when they can find a cell already prepared. And I have seen other instances of insects apparently wishing to avoid unnecessary labour. Those species which thus drill round holes in wood, for the purpose of obtaining a secure and commodious nidus for their young, are appropriately called CarpenterBees.

The Sassafras-tree (Laurus sassafras) is exceedingly common in the forest, principally in places where the light has free access. It sometimes grows to a tree of considerable size, but not very

often. It is very beautiful as a bush or shrub, the leaves being of pleasing shape, and of a lively-green hue, while the fruit is highly ornamental. It is an oval berry of a brilliant blue, seated in a shallow cup of a bright red hue at the end of a long footstalk. These are now appearing; the flowers, which are said to be yellow, I have not seen, as the plant blossoms very early, even before the leaves are developed. The latter are sometimes nearly oval, undivided, but more commonly there is a sinus on each side, dividing it into three lobes. And not seldom we see leaves here and there with a lobe well developed on one side, and the other side perfectly entire, the whole leaf taking the exact form of a woodman's mitten, the lobe being the thumb. Leaves of all the forms are often found on a single bush. Children Children are very fond of chewing the leaves and twigs, and particularly the root; the taste is agreeable, and the chewing communicates a pleasant warmth to the mouth; the root is especially warm and spicy. It is reputed to possess valuable properties in medicine, especially in cutaneous affections and chronic rheumatism.

The Spice-wood (Laurus benzoin) is a kindred species; the leaves, however, are rougher and more wrinkled, and the taste is not so pleasant. I think this is rather rare in this neighbourhood, as I know of only a few bushes, which grow in a swampy part of the forest, surrounded by long-leafed pines and willow-oaks. The berries of this species are scarlet.

There is a pretty little Butterfly common now, the Pale Azure (Polyommatus pseudargiolus), which so nearly resembles an English species (P. argiolus), as scarcely to be distinguished from it. Its colour is light azure-blue on the upper surface (with a broad black margin in the female), and, on the under side, much paler still, nearly white, with some small black dashes. In appearance and manners it much resembles the delicate little Hairstreaks (Thecla) with which it associates. Like them it appears to be very pugnacious, attacking with quixotic knight-errantry any intruder, no matter how much bigger than itself. It is particularly gamesome a few hours after sunrise: taking its stand on some prominent leaf of a bush, it rushes out upon every butterfly that passes by; then they perform such swift and tortuous evolutions that the eye is unable to follow them: this lasts only for a few seconds, for having pursued the traveller three or four yards, the Polyommatus returns to the very same leaf to watch as before. All this, however, I believe is done in a spirit of play, and not with any warlike intent. This constancy of resort to one individual leaf or twig is