peace it seems ever the emblem of content; it springs up and blooms on the driest furrows, robes with beauty the neglected corners and pathways of field and hedges, and seems ever to smile with a modest and most engaging beauty. The poet Massey describes the flower as merry Puritans:

"The Pansies, pretty little Puritans,

Come peering up with merry elvish eyes."

The flower has always been held in great favour for its simple, unpretending beauty. It is occasionally in its wild state stained with purple, but more usually of a pale yellow colour; the poetic notion is that it was formerly clear white, and assumed its purple stain from one of Cupid's bolts. Shakspeare, in his "Midsummer Night's Dream,” alludes to it thus:

"Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell ;
It fell upon a little western flower,

Before milkwhite, now purple with Love's wound,
And maidens call it 'Love in idleness.'"

The plant has numerous names-Pansy, from pensee, thought; Heartsease, "Love in idleness," "Viola tricolour," and others. The flower varies considerably, both in size and colour; the structure of the flower is peculiar—there are five petals of unequal size, two great and above the others, a third in front, with an odd-looking horn or spur at its base. If the petals are carefully plucked away the stamens and pistils bear a curious resemblance to a young bird as it creeps from the shell.

Our common wilding is usually reported as the parent stock of those beautiful varieties that ornament our gardens ; but this is not the case. We have seen the wild flower cultivated into a very different looking plant to that of the corn field, but it never assumes that richness and beauty of colouring presented by our importations from the North of Europe and America.

Lindley remarks:- "Beautiful as Pansies are to look at, they would produce anything rather than heart's ease if you were to eat them, for their roots have the property of producing sickness in so powerful a manner that they are sometimes used as emetics."

AUGUST 1ST.

THE OX GADFLY-(Estrus bovis.)

THE prime of the summer is now with us; long, bright, sunny days, and clear short nights; all nature revels in the genial heat; and though at midday, during the deep quiet of high noon, the sunny landscape seems to wink for very heat, and bird and insect are stilled for a time, yet on heath and hilltop the warmth of the sunniest days is tempered by fresh breezes. It is very rare that we get too much sunshine, and it is not only pleasureable but healthful to see

"The summer, in her wheaten garland crowned,"

gradually becoming browned by solar heat. A warm, dry summer corrects many of the evils our climate is subject to. The heat brings various petty discomforts-indeed, in the close atmosphere of the city, it is intolerable, and abroad the plague of insects is annoying. Some of these are so pertinacious in their attentions, and sting so smartly, as to cause great discomfort; but our land has cause for rejoicing in the fact that insect attacks are, except under rare circumstances, free from danger to man. Not so to cattle, for numerous victims fall a sacrifice to the plague of insects every year, and others suffer very severely. The fly known as the Breeze or Gadfly inflicts great injury. It is not unusual at this season to see the cattle in the pastures, with tails erect, galloping at the wildest pace, frantic with terror at the mere buzz of the Ox Gadfly; the furious race to the water, however, rarely serves the object intended, as the cattle carry the enemy with them. It is an insignificant-looking insect, not an inch long, dark brown, tinged with orange. Seated calmly on the animal's back during the

frantic gallop, it punctures the skin and deposits its eggs; every puncture inflicting intense suffering, causing the terrified beasts to bellow with pain. Virgil, in his 3rd Georgic, refers to this cattle plague:

"A fierce, loud buzzing breeze-their stings draw blood,
And drive the cattle gadding through the wood;
Seized with unusual pain, they loudly cry."

The egg deposited in the back of the ox is soon hatched into a small white worm, and a tumour begins to arise. The worm feeds and grows, the tumour increases and assumes a darker colour; it is then known as a "bot" or "warble." Sometimes a cluster of these tumours disfigure the animal. The worm feeds and fattens, the bot enlarges, and after ten or eleven months, the worm stage is completed, and it eats its way through the skin of the animal, and falls to the ground; there it burrows, assuming its second or quiet state. In August the perfect or winged state is assumed, and again it becomes the terror of the cattle field. Birds have been observed on the backs of cattle thus infested, watching the appearance of the fat worms, ready to snap up the delicate morsels as soon as they come forth, the ox appearing delighted with the friendly office of the bird.

AUGUST 2ND.

CORN RUST, SMUT, MILDEW, AND MOULD.-(Trichobasis rubigo vera.)

"Extensive harvests hang the heavy head:
Rich, silent, deep they stand; for not a gale
Rolls its light billows o'er the bending plain :
A calm of plenty."

THE Corn crops are now rapidly ripening, and as we pass through the fields, amid the million waving golden ears, every now and then there peep out indications of some of those peculiar fungal diseases that so often, and sometimes so ruinously, blast the labours of the year. The heading to this paper is the title of an interesting and instructive volume published