get ten cents of
the year 1799 for a dime.

The Scarabee was reassured as soon as he saw our faces, and he welcomed
us not ungraciously into his small apartment. It was hard to find a
place to sit down, for all the chairs were already occupied by cases and
boxes full of his favorites. I began, therefore, looking round the room.
Bugs of every size and aspect met my eyes wherever they turned. I felt
for the moment as I suppose a man may feel in a fit of delirium tremens.
Presently my attention was drawn towards a very odd-looking insect on the
mantelpiece. This animal was incessantly raising its arms as if towards
heaven and clasping them together, as though it were wrestling in prayer.

Do look at this creature,--I said to the Master, he seems to be very hard
at work at his devotions.

Mantas religiosa,--said the Master,--I know the praying rogue. Mighty
devout and mighty cruel; crushes everything he can master, or impales it
on his spiny shanks and feeds upon it, like a gluttonous wretch as he is.
I have seen the Mantis religiosa on a larger scale than this, now and
then. A sacred insect, sir,--sacred to many tribes of men; to the
Hottentots, to the Turks, yes, sir, and to the Frenchmen, who call the
rascal prie dieu, and believe him to have special charge of children that
have lost their way.

Doesn't it seem as if there was a vein of satire as well as of fun that
ran through the solemn manifestations of creative wisdom? And of
deception too--do you see how nearly those dried leaves resemble an
insect?

They do, indeed,--I answered,--but not so closely as to deceive me. They
remind me of an insect, but I could not mistake them for one.

--Oh, you couldn't mistake those dried leaves for an insect, hey? Well,
how can you mistake that insect for dried leaves? That is the question;
for insect it is,--phyllum siccifolium, the "walking leaf," as some have
called it.--The Master had a hearty laugh at my expense.

The Scarabee did not seem to be amused at the Master's remarks or at my
blunder. Science is always perfectly serious to him; and he would no
more laugh over anything connected with his study, than a clergyman would
laugh at a funeral.

They send me all sorts of trumpery,--he said, Orthoptera and Lepidoptera;
as if a coleopterist--a scarabeeist--cared for such things. This
business is no boy's play to me. The insect population of the world is
not even catalogued yet, and a lifetime given to the sca