Ladybird and its Stages.
The boys returned to their couches in the long grass in the shade, and Frank was soon too sleepy to tease, but lay on the broad of his back, looking up at the blue sky through the interstices of the oak branches. Dick was studying the movements of a ladybird with red back and black spots, which was crawling up a grass-stem, and wondering how such a pretty creature could eat a green juicy aphis, as it has a habit of doing. Jimmy was turning over the pages of his book, and looking out the plates of flowers, and comparing them with some he had gathered. He was rather bewildered and somewhat discouraged at the immensity of the study he had undertaken. No sooner did he learn the name of a flower than it was driven from his head by that of another, and having attempted to do too much in the beginning, he had got into a pretty state of confusion. He had given up the idea of keeping pace with naming all the beautiful flowers he had found. He gathered and dried them, and left to the winter evenings the task of arranging and naming them.
"I say," called out Frank, "around my face there are at least seven different kinds of grasses. Can you name them, Jimmy?—and how many different kinds of grasses are there?"
"I can name nothing," said Jimmy dolefully, "but I will look it up in my book and tell you. Here it is, but their name seems legion. You must look at them for yourself. The plates are very beautiful, but the quaking grass, of which there is any quantity just by your head, is the prettiest."
"They seem as pretty as ferns," said Frank. "I must learn something more about them."
A day or two after this Mr. Meredith said to them, when they had assembled at his house in the morning:
"Now, boys, from something a little bird has whispered to me, I think you stand in need of a little punishment, and I therefore mean to give you a lesson. You are by far too desultory in your study of natural history. You attempt to do too much, and so you only obtain a superficial knowledge, instead of the thorough and practical one you ought to have. You are trying to reach a goal before you have fairly started from the toe-line. I allude more especially now to botanical matters, because I know most about them, and that is all I can help you in. Therefore you will be kind enough to translate into Latin this Essay which I have written on the Life of a Fern."
"That is anything but a punishment, sir," said Frank, laughing.
The boys set to work with great zest at their novel lesson. I set the English of it out in the next chapter, and I particularly request my young readers to read every word of it.