The Sun.
London, England, 1849-12-14 00:00:00

CHRISTMAS BOOKS.

EPISODES OF INSECT LIFE. Second Series.
By Acheta Domestica.
The great success which attended the first literary
attempt of the Cricket (Acheta Domestica) last year
has, we are happy to find, encouraged Lim to continue
his revelations. This second series of episodes is
even more delightful than its predecessor. Never
have entomological lessons been given in a hsppier
strain, rarely has the happy doctrine of finding
1' sermons in stones and good in everything" met
with so excellent an expositor. The book is through-
out a labour of love, and as such we love to read it.
Persuaded by the reasoning, and induced by the infec-
tious example of the narrator, we love the insect world
of which he tells us,:we love the kindly Cricket who
admonishes so wisely and reproves so gently, we love,
better than ever, our Mother Nature, whose innume•
rable marvels are thus further revealed to us, and
finally looking " from Nature up to Natare's God," v. e
recognise our own insignificance. Are we not right,
then, in denominating these episodes " a Christmas
Book ?"—animated as they are by the spirit of loving
kindness, and suggesting as they do pure and elevated
thoughts. Having said thus much of the general
tone, let us examine the lesser peculiarities of the work.
In the first place the cover is singularly attractive
—its colour being a violet blue, almost hidden by a
wreath of golden flowers, about which gulden insects
are disporting, and above which are interlaced the
golden meshes of a golden spider's web, while
in the midst sits the golden cricket, deliver-
ing his entomological harangue. The "Epi-
sodes" are divided into chapters, and the beginning
of every chapter is adorned with some most beautiful
coloured drawings of various insects. Here we
notice the crimson lady-bird crawling up a leaf
covered with the blight insects (Aphides), which form
her favourite food—a circumstance that renders the
lady bird of peculiar service to the gardener. In
another place we mark the "coming out" of' the
insect world—beautiful winged insects issuing from
the caterpillar's slough. Again, on turning over a
leaf, we come to a grasshopper, depicted with such
marvellous exactitude that we almost expect to see
him spring from the book. Tne gorgeous
colouring of the moths, and the exquisite gracefulness
of the slender dragon-flies require to les seen in order
to be appreciated. The artist who has illustrated
this volume has displayed no mean abilities. While
we are speaking of illustrations let us not forget
to notice the facetious vignettes at the close of
every chapter. Many of these, in co iceptien and
execution, are worthy of Punch--the prince of cari-
caturists. An extract is here an impossi'iility, or we
would gladly give our readers a glimpse of a spider's
retribution. A spider of extraordinary dimensions
is ruthlessly entangling a victim in his web—" that
victim no Pile fly," but a housemaid of fairy -like
dimensions. The destroying broom and dust-pan fall
from the hands of the hapless prisoner, and the great
foe of spiders' webs feels the weight of a spider'sven-
geance. Another vignette, equally good, is at the con-
clusion of a chapter, in which the following marvel.
lous anecdote is related. Mr. Beddome, a respectable
chemist of Tooley-street, London, stated some years ago
that after emptying some beehives of their honey, he
boiled them for a considerable time in water to obtain
honey from between the interstices. A number of
bees, mixed with the honey, floated on the surface of
the water ; these he skimmed off, and placed on the
flagstones outside his laboratory, which was at the
top of the house, exposed to a July meridian sun.
" You may imagine my astonishment," writes Mr.
Beddome, " when, in half-an-hour, I saw scores of
these bees that had been for months in a state of
Suffocation, and then well boiled, gradually come
to life and fly away 1" This surprising
incident is celebrated in the vignette—swarms of
healthy, active bees are seen issuing from a steaming
Cauldron, while the grisly skeleton, Death, holding
op his hands in amazement, exclaims " They set me
at defiance 1" Mingled with the entomological disser-
tations, which are alternately so playful or so interest-
ing as never to be wearisome, are many delightful
tales, artfully connected with the episodes of insect
life. One of the happiest is a lesson for wives. At the
head of this chapter the artist displays to us a curi-
ous incident in insect life—a peculiar class of ants
disrobing themselves of their wings, preparatory to
entering on a new stage of existence.
" These summer wings
Have borne me in my idle days of pleasure,
I do discard them."
A very delightful and not a very improbable tale is
appended to this picture. A young bride, rather
wilful, and rather too fond of dissipation, had almost
wrecked the early happiness of her married life by
persisting in going to a masked ball against her
husband's wishes, when the very evening before the
important day, after her dress that of Titania,
wings and all—was prepared, she happened to take a
stroll with her friend and guest, the kindly Cricket.
By chance they stopped to watch the proceedings at
an ant-bill, and witnessed, to the lady, the astonishing
incident of winged ants disrobing themselves of their
wings; their life of idle gaiety at an end, they,
following the behests of nature, were preparing them-
selves for a life of quiet and industry. How the
Cricket, seemingly sane intention, taught the lesson,
or how the giddy bride put it to happy profit,
We shall not say. This, however, is only one instance
of the charming facility with which our Cricket turns
the simplest incident to good account. Very
cordially do we commend this volume to our readers.
Young and old, wise and simple, grave and gay, can-
not fail to turn over its pages without deriving there-
from pleasure and information—pleasure and informa-
tion so cunningly intermingled that it would be
difficult to say which predominates.

THE NILE BOAT; or, Glimpses of the Land
of Egypt.. By W. H. Bartlett, author of " Forty
Days in the Desert."
All who followed Mr. Bartlett in his forty days'
" track of the Israelites" will, we doubt not, gladly
accept of his invitation to embark in the Nile boat
and take a glimpse of the far famed land of Egypt.
,We, having done so, will willingly describe what we
nave met with, for the benefit of those persons who
may be tempted to take a similar cruise. Before we
set out Mr. Bartlett laid before us a brief history of
Egypt, by Samuel Sharpe. Thus prepared to take
new interest in a land so famous from its ancient
glory and its marvellous monuments, we em-
barked on the " Nile boat" with anxious and
pleasurable expectations. Those expectations were
in nowise disappointed. While we gazed on the ter-
rible and solemn grandeur of the spbynx, as pour-
trayed by the graphic pencil, or followed the intricate
mazes of the pyramids, as described by the felicitous
Pen of Mr. Bartlett, we could easily imagine that
oar fanciful supposition was realised, and that the
Nile boat had in reality transported us to the shores
of the ancient land. There is an actuality about the
descriptions and a gloomy beady about the illustra-
tions that renders this glimpse of Egypt peculiarly
charming. We could easily Si upon many descrip-
tive passages to corroborate this assertion, but we
prefer quoting the following interesting enumeration
of the perplexities to which the unaccountable pyra-
mids have given rise :
, " Some have supposed them to be antediluvian, others
tnat they were built by the children of Noah to escape
from a second flood—by Nimrod, by the Pali of Iltn-
dostan, and even the ancient Irish. It was a favourite
theory, until very lately, that they were the work
cf the captive Israelites. The Arabians attributed them
to the Jins, or Genii ; others to a race of Titans. Some
Lave supposed them to have been the granaries built by
Joseph; others, intended for his tomb, or those of the
rharaoh drowned in the Red Sea, or of the bull Apia.
Yeates thinks they soon followed the Tower of Babel,
and both had the same common design; while, according
to others, they were bult with the spoils of Solomon's
Temple and the riches of the Queen of Sheba. They
hive been regarded as temples of Venus, as reservoirs
for purifying the waters of the Nile, as erected for astro-
nomical or mathematical purposes, or intended to protect
the valley of the Nile from the encroachments of the sands
01 the desert (this notable theory, too, is quite recent)—in
'Alert, for every conceivable and inconceivable purpose
that could be imagined by superstitious awe,
1337 erudition groping without data in the
'ark, or reasoning upon the scanty and
suspicious evidence of Grecian writers. At length,
after a silence of thousands of years, the discoveries of
ehampollion have enabled the monuments to tell their
• own tale; their mystery has been in a great measure
unravelled, and the names of their founders ascertained.
The explorations of Colonel Vyse, Perring, and re-
cently of Lepel" have brought to light the remains of
no. leas than sixt•nine pyramids, extending in a lice
from Abowroash to Dashoor. These, by the discovery
of the names of their founders, are proved to have been
a succession of royal mausolea, forming the most sublime
3ecropolis in the world. The size of each different pyramid
1$ supposed to bear relation to the length of the reign of
.
builder, being commenced with the delving of a
t; nab in the roek for him at his accession, over which a
Fresh layer of stones was added (very year until his
I.,eecase, when the monument was finished and closed up.
4king the number of these Memphite sovereigns, and
,a
aversge length of their reigns, the gradual construe.
"On of the i yramids would tterefore, it is presumed,
x.tand OTer a period, in round numbers, of some sixteen
~"'Hired ye,irs
• • • • . • • •
is the latest theory, we believe, of the construction
7:2(1 import of
.the pyramids. At the risk, howeve-,
irreverence towards the learned authorities by
Juoin it is propounded, we would remark,
of the it appears inconsistent with the co istruotion
great pyramid of Cheops, since the existence of a
aeriesl. of interior passages and chambers, and even of
'irr passages communicating with the exterior, seems t
a
L.le a regular design for the construction of the
ene_
wire monument. We are utterly at a loss to conceive
1,4:e these interior passages and chambers could have
av
.formed gradually, as upon this theory they must
_ have neen, during the accumulation of a mass of masonry,
th 2 ultimate extent of which depended on the contin-
atccY of the monarch's life. And if this objection be
to the theory what becomes of the very pretty
7Pt:nl of chronology erected upon it?"
)pg the tainJus spots iliustrated by the skilful
rYell of (iive presume) Mr. Bartlett, is the grand
e
arnali (the frontispiece of the volume),