But we have something to say about the food of insects. Although it has been already laid down as a general rule, that insects in their perfect state, do not eat in any degree with the voracity they exhibit in the larva form, it is nevertheless true that they do both require and devour food in considerable quantities, and of various kinds. Some, for example, are exclusively _vegetable_ feeders. They attack all the parts of plants, not excepting even the root and the bark. Some, with an elegant taste, select the yellow pollen of flowers for their dainty and delicate food. And others, more refined still in their appetites, will have nothing but the fresh distilled honey that lies hid at the bottom of the flowers, pumping it up by the beautiful spirally-coiled tube which forms a part of their mouth. Need we say these are the butterflies? The fly loves a grain of sugar, or a savoury joint of meat: and to other insects, to use a quotation of Mr. Spence's, which prefer the paper of our Atlases, or maps,-- ----"a river and a sea Are a dish of tea, And a kingdom bread and butter." A large number also are _carnivorous_ creatures: need we mention the spider-tribe? a name of terror to myriads of our summer insect-friends. The beautiful _cicindelæ_, called by Linnæus the "tigers to insects," prey upon the whole insect race, and are endowed with powers of offence and destruction, to a degree sufficient fully to justify this title. In France, we are told, the butchers are very glad to have wasps attend their stalls; since they drive away, and undoubtedly prey upon, the numerous flies which frequent these places. The larger species of ants are equally ferocious, attacking any small soft-bodied insect they may meet with, and when killed dragging it to their nest. The beautiful lady-birds, which we look upon with so much tenderness, remembering the ditty, "Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home, Your house is on fire, your children will burn;"