hat. He is unpleasant in two ways. He
burrows in the ground so that you cannot find him, and he flies away so
that you cannot catch him. He is rather handsome, as bugs go, but
utterly dastardly, in that he gnaws the stem of the plant close to the
ground, and ruins it without any apparent advantage to himself. I find
him on the hills of cucumbers (perhaps it will be a cholera-year, and we
shall not want any), the squashes (small loss), and the melons (which
never ripen). The best way to deal with the striped bug is to sit down
by the hills, and patiently watch for him. If you are spry, you can
annoy him. This, however, takes time. It takes all day and part of the
night. For he flieth in the darkness, and wasteth at noonday. If you get
up before the dew is off the plants,--it goes off very early,--you can
sprinkle soot on the plant (soot is my panacea: if I can get the
disease of a plant reduced to the necessity of soot, I am all right);
and soot is unpleasant to the bug. But the best thing to do is set a
toad to catch the bugs. The toad at once establishes the most intimate
relations with the bug. It is a pleasure to see such unity among the
lower animals. The difficulty is to make the toad stay and watch the
hill. If you know your toad, it is all right. If you do not, you must
build a tight fence round the plants, which the toad cannot jump over.
This, however, introduces a new element. I find that I have a zoological
garden on my hands. It is an unexpected result of my little enterprise,
which never aspired to the completeness of the Paris "Jardin des
Plantes."--_My Summer in a Garden_.

THE PLUMBER.

Speaking of the philosophical temper, there is no class of men whose
society is to be more desired for this quality than that of plumbers!
They are the most agreeable men I know; and the boys in the business
begin to be agreeable very early. I suspect the secret of it is, that
they are agreeable by the hour. In the driest days, my fountain became
disabled: the pipe was stopped up. A couple of plumbers, with the
implements of their craft, came out to view the situation. There was a
good deal of difference of opinion about where the stoppage was. I found
the plumbers perfectly willing to sit down and talk about it,--talk by
the hour. Some of their guesses and remarks were exceedingly ingenious;
and their general observations on other subjects were excellent in their
way, and could hardly have been better if they had been