Again and again have I shaken or brushed them off only to see them increase and multiply; and, on the other hand, on more than one occasion have I seen an entire swarm vanish from a particular twig which I knew was infested only a day or two previous. Why? It was not that the aphides had completed their growth and died or fled. A careful examination among the young leaves or along the stem in their neighborhood showed the author of the havoc, a fat aphis lion, perhaps, in the act of sucking the contents of its last victim, or, perhaps, having completed his growth, contemplating the commencement of his cocoon in which to abide during the winter. Almost any swarm of aphides will show us this fat wolf in the fold, and if not this particular one, another--perhaps two others--quite as voracious, one of them the fat larva of the lady-bug, and the other a tapering-looking grub with needle beak and insatiable hunger, the larva of the gold-banded flower-fly. The Perfumed Beetle Surprises await us at every turn in wood and field if our senses are sufficiently alert and responsive. I well remember the singular revelation which rewarded my curiosity upon a certain occasion in my boyhood, an incident which now seems trivial enough, but which marked a rare day in my youthful entomological education, and which, as it relates to an insect of exceptional peculiarity, I may here recall. I was returning homeward after a successful day of hide-and-seek with the caterpillars and butterflies and beetles, my well-stored collecting-box being filled with squirming and creeping specimens, and my hat brim adorned with a swarm of Idalias, Archippus, yellow swallow-tails, and other butterflies--the butterfly-net on this particular occasion being rendered further useless by the occupancy of a big red adder which I wished to preserve "alive and sissin'." I had taken a short cut through the woods, and had paused to rest on a well-known mossy rock. The welcome odors of the woods, the mould, the dank moss, and the spice-bush lingered about me; and I well remember the occasional whiff from the fragrant pyrolas somewhere in my neighborhood, though unseen. It was a very warm day in the middle of July, and even the busiest efforts of millions of cool, fluttering leaves of the shadowed woods had barely tempered the languid breeze, laden as it was with the reminders of the glaring hay-field just outside its borders.