Her older companions, at any rate, must be far enough advanced in the science to attempt this bee problem; of which you will find the terms have to be carefully examined, and somewhat completed. So much, indeed, do they stand in need of farther definition, that I should have supposed the problem inaccurately given, unless I had seen the bee cut a leaf myself. But I have seen her do it, and can answer for the absolute accuracy of the passage describing her in that operation. The pieces of leaf, you read, are to be narrow at one end, but gradually widen to the other, where the width equals half the length. And we have to cut these pieces with curved sides; for one side of them is to be the serrated edge of a rose leaf, and the other side is to be cut in a curved line beginning near the root of the leaf. I especially noticed this curved line as the bee cut it; but like an ass, as often I have been on such occasions, I followed the bee instead of gathering the remnant leaf, so that I can’t draw the curve with certainty. Now each of my four volumes of Bingley has five or more plates in it. These plates are finished line engravings, with, in most cases, elaborate landscape backgrounds; reeds for the hippopotamus, trees for the monkeys, conical mountains for the chamois, and a magnificent den with plenty of straw for the lioness and cubs, in frontispiece. Any one of these landscape backgrounds required the severe labour of the engraver’s assistant for at least three days to produce it,—or say two months’ hard work, for the whole twenty and odd plates. And all the result of two months’ elaborate work put together, was not worth to me, nor would be to any man, woman, or child, worth—what an accurate outline of a leaf-cutting bee’s segment of leaf would have been, drawn with truth and precision. And ten minutes would have been enough to draw it; and half an hour to cut it. But not only I cannot find it in my old book, but I know it is not in the grand modern Cuvier, and I don’t believe it is findable anywhere. I won’t go on with Agnes’s lesson at guess, however, till I get some help from kind Dr. Gray, at the British Museum. To-day, I must content myself with a closing word or two about zoological moralities. After having, to my best ability, thus busied and informed little Agnes concerning her bees and their operations, am I farther to expatiate on the exemplary character of the bee? Is she to learn “How doth,” etc. (and indeed there never was a country in which more than in her own, it was desirable that shining hours should be taken advantage of when they come)? But, above all, am I to tell her of the Goodness and Wisdom of God in making such amiable and useful insects? Well, before I proceed to ask her to form her very important opinions upon the moral character of God, I shall ask her to observe that all insects are not equally moral, or useful.