harmless little insect of which I have been telling you. None of them are found in Europe; they dwell in that region of the globe where the inferior animals are on the largest scale, and where man is most degraded-Africa.

"The colony which I watched on the banks of the Tiber, became daily increased, as the white worms, which are, in fact, ants in their infancy, came to their perfect condition. I must tell you how it was with them.

"Each small white worm or maggot grew till it became quite as large as the ants themselves are, and a very heavy and troublesome load to the nurses who carried it up to the top of the hillock for the benefit of sun, and down again to its depths for protection from rain or cold. When it had grown to this size, I perceived that it cast its skin, and then for a time lost all power to move, and all appearance of life, taking no food; but it was not dead; soon I could perceive that it was growing into the shape of a perfect ant, but around it was again another skin, like the swaddling clothes of an infant ;

nor had the creature any power to throw off these swaddling clothes without the help of its kind nurses, -they disengaged it from them with their teeth; if they did not so, it would perish within the bandage. If the old ones took off the skin too soon, the infant ant would die of cold; if they left it too long, it would die of suffocation; but their instinct teaches them the exact time to perform the duty, and they never neglect it. saw them most busily at work, day after day, relieving the young from this skin of their aurelia state, and the little freed animals were no sooner released from it, than they ran about like the rest on the classic Roman ground.

"Some years ago, a naturalist, called De Geer, wished to inform himself respecting all points connected with the history of ants. He took some of the young when they were in the aurelia state, and kept them where the nurses could not get to them; they were unable to break the skin which covered their bodies, and they all perished. Those which I watched on the banks of the Tiber were more kindly treated; they were assisted in throwing off their

latest case, and they then immediately took their place with the other ants, and helped them in all the labours of life.

“About this time, I perceived that the mother ants lost their wings, and, being then very helpless insects-much more helpless than the working tribe -not a few of them were devoured by birds; at the same period, the children of the colony being all grown up and able to work for themselves, the fathers of the population, who did not lose their wings, being no longer needed at home, took flight; the weather was becoming chilly, and they were devoured in numbers by birds which caught them on the wing; others of them were stupified by the cold, and unable to return to their place of abode.

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There are now very few of the parents of the colony left, and the working or nursing ants, who are more active, and better able to help and preserve themselves, are ceasing to go abroad, and becoming torpid; they will want no food during the winter, but will lie heaped together at the lower part of the hillock, which a few months ago they so busily built.

Then, with the warm suns of April they will be again revived, and will lead the same life, and perform the same operations, that they have done this

summer.

"Man changes with rolling ages, and as he lives in civilized or barbarous society. The insect world, taught by the instinct which heaven has given it, knows no change. The ants which lived first when the waters of the deluge had subsided from the earth, were guided by the same habits, and practised the same economy, as those which live in your days, and are watched by the naturalists of you times."

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CHAPTER XV.

THE MOON'S ACCOUNT OF WHAT BEFEL THE MANUSCRIPTS OF ARCHBISHOP USSHER.

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A fairer isle than Britain,

Never sun viewed in his wide career.'

"I, Too, rejoice to shine upon her," said the Moon, on one of her visits to me; "she engages much of my attention. I aid the sun to ripen British corn, and light the reapers to gather it in. The face of nature smiles in that island kingdom, and her people are placid and happy-at least usually they are so ; but I have occasionally seen their habitual contentment exchanged for violence and discord.

"A sad and gloomy period in the British isles was the reign of their sovereign Charles, the first of that name. The king encroached upon the liberties of the Parliament, and the Parliament fought against