“It is a very fertile one, however,” said her father, “as it has been found, on calculation, that the Isle of Wight produces seven times as much corn and other articles of human food as would suffice for the wants of its inhabitants.”
To relieve the monotony of the road, Agnes now began to tell her papa what she had seen at the Needles; and even their surly driver mingled in the conversation. “Ah! miss,” said he, “the greatest sight that was ever seen near the Needles was a whale that was cast on shore on the Shingles, in the year 1814. It was before my time,” continued he, “but I have often heard talk of it.”
Agnes yawned; and her mother advised her to get out of the carriage, and walk a little, as she had been so much amused in gathering wild flowers the previous day. Agnes willingly complied, and soon returned with a piece of the weed called Crosswort, with an insect feeding on it. “What can this be?” cried she. “It does not look like a common caterpillar.”
PLANT OF CROSSWORT (_Galium cruciatum_), with the larva and perfect insect of the BLOODY-NOSED BEETLE (_Timarcha tenebricosa_). ]
“It is the larva of the bloody-nosed beetle,” said Mrs. Merton. “Its colour is a deep green, and it has six legs near the head, with two other legs at the extremity of the body which assist it in climbing from leaf to leaf.”
“But why has the beetle to which it belongs such a strange name?” asked Agnes.
“Because when attacked it ejects from its mouth some drops of a reddish fluid which look like blood. The eggs of this insect are of a bright orange, and its pupa case is green.”
Agnes now shook the insect off, and was about to tread on it, when her mother stopped her. “Do not hurt it,” said she, “it only feeds on weeds;—do you not remember what Cowper, who was pre-eminently the poet of Nature, says:—
‘I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners, and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility,) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.’
Yet I would not wish you to show a morbid sensibility. As when it is necessary that animals should be killed, even the same poet says:—
‘The sum is this:—If man’s convenience, health, Or safety interfere, his rights and claims Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs. Else they are all—the meanest things that are,— As free to live, and to enjoy that life, As God was free to form them at the first, Who in his sovereign wisdom made them all.’”