o they contented themselves with the productions of
the air, and rich indeed was this part of the country in insect wonders.
Fred at first only looked upon the gaily-painted butterflies, and
bright rose beetles, as being beautiful, till he heard some of the
explanations from Mr Inglis, when he found that in some of the smallest
insects they captured there were ten times the beauties and wonders that
were to be found in their larger companions. There were numberless
things that he would have passed over because they were not striking at
the first glance, but which the eye of the naturalist had sought out,
and made known to those who had not chosen insect life for their study.
Fred never before saw such plumes of feathers as some little gnats wore
on their heads, nor knew of such a wondrous or dangerous instrument as
the sting of a bee, so fine and so sharp; and yet fine as it was, able
to contain a channel by which the minute portion of poison was injected
into the tiny wound to rankle and create such great pain.

"But come," said Mr Inglis, "we must talk about these things when we
get back to-night, and have the microscope out. We must have some more
specimens yet. Try after those great cabbage butterflies, boys'--those
we have are getting very shabby in appearance."

Away started Harry and Philip, forgetting in a moment all the advice
they had received, and dashing off after the inserts in a wild chase,
that ended, of course, in the butterflies soaring up out of reach, and
the boys coming back hot and out of breath to be laughed at by their
father and Fred.

At last they reached Mr Benson's farm, where they were most cordially
received by the farmer's happy-faced dame, who seemed delighted to see
her belated friends again, and soon had them into the house to feast
upon fresh-gathered strawberries and some of the thick yellow cream that
she skimmed morning and night from the pans in her snowy dairy; and when
they had finished, and Mr Inglis was having a quiet chat with Farmer
Benson about crops, and markets, and similar matters, which Harry
classed together as "all bother," Mrs Benson showed the boys her famous
dairy, which I was quite right in calling "snowy," for it was in
everything of the whitest and coldest. For Mrs Benson's dairy was
famous for the butter and cream it produced, and was well known at all
the markets round, for from nowhere else was there such sweet
golden-looking butter to be obtained.

Aft