Page:Dick Sands the Boy Captain.djvu/66

52 DICK SANDS, THE BOY CAPTAIN. the most insignificant insect ; it is related of hîm that when he had once been încessantly tormented ail day by a mosquito, at last he found it on the back of his hand and blew it off, saying, * Fly away, little créature, the world is large enough for both you and me !* " " That little anecdote of yours, Mr. Benedict," said the captain, smiling, " is a good deal older than Sir John Franklin. It is told, in ncarly the same words, about Uncle Toby, in Sterne's *Tristrani Shandy*; only there it was not a mosquito, it was a common fly." "And was Uncle Toby an entomologist .? " asked Benedict ; " did he ever really live ? " " No," said the captain, " he was only a character in a novel." Cousin Benedict gave a look of utter contempt, and Captain Hull and Mrs Weldon could not resist laughing. Such is only one instance of the way in which Cousin Benedict invariably brought it about that ail conversation with him ultimately turned upon his favourite pursuit, and ail along, throughout the monotonous hours of smooth sailing, while the " Pilgrim" was making lier little head- way to the east, he showed his own dévotion to his pet science, by seeking to enlist new disciples. First of ail, he tried his powers of persuasion upon Dick Sands, but soon finding that the young apprentice had no taste for entomo- logical mysteries, he gave him up and turned his attention to the negroes. Nor was he much more successful with them ; one aftcr another, Tom, Bat, Acta^on, and Austin had ail withdrawn themselves from his instructions, and the class at last was reduccd to the single person of Hercules ; but in him the enthusiastîc naturalistthoughthehaddiscovered a latent talent which could distinguish betwccn a parasite and a thysanura. Hercules accordingly submîtted to pass a considérable portion of his leisure in the observation of every variety of coleoptera ; he was encouraged to study the extensîve collection of stag-beetles, tiger-beetles and lady-birds ; and although at times the enthusiast trembled to see some of his most délicate and fragile spécimens in the huge grasp