another lives, and thus the physical act of aggression, which we call selfishness, becomes the seed-bed, as it were, or forcing-house—the food-plant, to use an entomological simile—of a moral altruism. True, the Aphis may at first struggle, the maggot, pierced by the ovipositor, may flinch for a moment, but after that there is complete passivity, without which there can be no complete acquiescence. Self-absorption, that is the moral of it all; for the true self of the Aphis, which is not represented by the outer husk, is absorbed into the Ichneumon, and so in regard to the latter. Thus, throughout the animal kingdom we must look to the inner, and not to the outer, significance. What matters it, though Nature be “red in tooth and claw,” if the fierce rendings of the outer integuments are but as the first gropings towards interior rest and calm? And should we not, in the lower walks of life, look to the soul through the body, and see in processes which, with ourselves, might seem to represent the flesh only, a blending which but anticipates the more complete separation? Thus, and thus only, as it appears to me, can we impart beauty to a scheme which, without this key, must appear selfish and unsatisfactory. The key may be hard to find, but when we once hold it we need no longer repine. Besides the Wheat Aphis, which but for such arrangements as have here been glanced at, would almost deprive us of bread, we have the Hop Aphis, a species the dread of which is still more strongly disseminated amongst the masses of this country, inasmuch as its interference would be with the supply of beer. No wonder, then, that the little ladybird is beloved by all, since, but for its efforts, many a poor man might have to live in a state of enforced sobriety, which, in its turn, must deleteriously affect that position of respect and esteem which many illustrious and highly placed individuals now hold in the hearts of the people, so that a general disturbal of habits and ideas, amounting almost to moral chaos, would attend any serious diminution in the numbers of this insect, England’s true guardian angel. But it were unjust to claim an undue share in the merit of recognising work like this. Appreciation of such services is, as one might expect, widely spread, and is expressed in such popular names as, for instance, in Lombardy “Bestioline del Signore,” in Tuscany “Madonnine” or “Marioline,” in France “Bête” or “Vache à Dieu,” and in Germany “Sonnenkäfer.” The first-named countries, indeed, are not, or used not to be, beer-drinking, so that unless this little madonna is a patroness of the vine too, they are not so easy to understand. It may, however, be incidentally mentioned that the ladybirds are good friends to the orchards, and destroy many thousands of apple- or plum-eating Aphides. Aphides, in fact, of some kind or other, are what they have come into the world to destroy. It is their mission, their epos.