Natural Lamps.
Thequeen beetle is about one inch and a quarter in length, and carries by her side, just about her waist, two brilliant lamps, which she lights up at pleasure, with the solar phosphorus furnished her by nature. These little lamps do not flash and glimmer like those of the fire-fly, but give as steady a light as that produced by a gas-burner, exhibiting two perfect spheres, as large as a minute pearl. These are so powerful that they will afford a person light enough to read print by them.
On carrying this insect into a dark closet in the daytime, no light is emitted at first, but she quickly illuminates her lamps, and immediately extinguishes them, on being brought again into the light. But language cannot sufficiently express the beauty and sublimity of these lucid orbs in miniature, with which nature has endowed the queen of the insect kingdom.
A mind occupied becomes fortified against the ills of life and is braced for any emergency. Children amused by reading and study, are of course considerate and more easily governed.