Neope Contrasta

Neope contrasta (黄荫眼蝶).

Summer markings. Spotted on a rock wall during an evening walk in Huxingshan Yao Ethnic Township, up to an empty water reservoir above the village.

Suspicions

Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist (London: Millennium, 2001; 1926), p. 133:

Mere suspicions are hard to communicate. They are rather like the wines that will not travel, and have to be drunk on the spot.

Lex Youtie

Ariel Sabar, Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife (New York: Anchor Books, 2021; 2020), p. 14:

American papyrologist Herbert Youtie coined a dictum. Known as Lex Youtie, Latin for “Youtie’s Rule,” it advises, “Iuxta lacunam ne mutaveris,” or, roughly, “Next to a hole, thou shalt not edit.”

Euhampsonia Cristata

Euhampsonia cristata (黄二星舟蛾).

It will take some time to sort my photos of nature in Huxingshan Yao Ethnic Township (虎形山瑶族乡). But my first picture is the last creature I photographed, a medium-sized moth that was lingering in the morning in the local village school before my departure.

Fire Party on Tiger Mountain

I was fortunate to help a group of college students in Huxingshan Yao Ethnic Township (虎形山瑶族乡) who are working in a local village school during the summer. I took a lot of photographs, including this one of a Saturday night fire party.

Yellow-spotted Stink Bug Moulting

The yellow-spotted stink bug (erthesina fullo, 麻皮蝽) is a common sight in the Changsha summer, but it it is rare to see the larva changing into an adult, as this one was slowly doing in plain view this afternoon in Wangling Park.

Thucydides Trap

Paul Cartledge, Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece (New York: Abrams Press, 2020), p. 134:

The old problems of why the Atheno-Peloponnesian War – or wars – broke out, in 431 BCE, and of which side was really or chiefly responsible for the outbreak, have had a recent infusion of oxygen from Graham Allison’s coinage of the phrase ‘the Thucydides trap’. This notion, which postulates that an established power will be tempted, perhaps irresistibly, even ‘inevitably’, to go to war in an attempt to nip in the bud any rising power that threatens it (for example, the United States and China today and in the foreseeable future) has been applied or rather misapplied to relations between Sparta and Athens between the 470s and the 430s, and used – quite wrongly – to ‘explain’ the war’s outbreak. But by 431 both those powers – each of them had substantial permanent alliances behind them, if of very different kinds – had definitively and long since ‘risen’. Arguably, it was the older-established of the two alliances (the Spartan) that felt the more threatened by the other, and Sparta that started the war – that is, made the difference as to whether or not there would be a war at all (it did not in fact make the first attacking move). But the war was in no sense ‘inevitable’, and Thucydides does not say that it was.

Whole World is a Book

Let us but intend to see and hear, and then the whole world becomes a book of wisdom and instruction to us. All that is regular in the order of nature, all that is accidental in the course of things, all the mistakes and disappointments that happen to ourselves, all the miseries and errors that we see in other people, become so many plain lessons of advice to us, teaching us with as much assurance as an angel from Heaven that we can no ways raise ourselves to any true happiness but by turning all our thoughts, our wishes, and endeavours after the happiness of another life.

William Law, A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (London: J.M. Dent, 1951; 1728), p. 148.

Mountain Bulbul

Mountain Bulbul (Ixos mcclellandii, 绿翅短脚鹎).

One of a small flock, I spotted one early morning near the base of Yuelu Mountain. In the dry season various songbirds congregate in the few valleys with lingering rivulets or ponds, making now a good time for observing local birds; provided one can tolerate the heat, which is vigorous now, even in the shade.

Trees Burning

But how the fyr was maked upon highte,
Ne eek the names that the trees highte,
As ook, firre, birch, aspe, alder, holm, popler,
Wylugh, elm, plane, assh, box, chasteyn, lynde, laurer,
Mapul, thorn, bech, hasel, ew, whippeltree --
How they weren feld shal nat be toold for me

Geoffrey Chaucer, The Knight's Tale, 2919-24.

Rhamnomia Dubia

Rhamnomia dubia (拉缘蝽).

A large leaf-footed bug, they are unsteady flyers and slow crawlers. In warm weather, a closer examination of vegetation along the footpaths on Yuelu Mountain will usually turn up a few of them, perched on leaf and stem.

Friendship and Love

Itaque amicitia semper prodest, amor aliquando etiam nocet.

While friendship is always beneficial; love rather is sometimes harmful.

Seneca the Younger, Epistles, XXXV.1. My translation.

Female Greater Blue Skimmer

Greater Blue Skimmer (Orthetrum melania, 异色灰蜻). Female.

Another 'blue' dragonfly in which the females are in fact black and yellow. There are many of them out now, both by the lakes and throughout the forests, vigilant destroyers of nasty mosquitoes.

On the Road Again

Christina Rossetti
‘Uphill’

  Does the road wind uphill all the way?
   Yes, to the very end.
Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?
   From morn to night, my friend.

But is there for the night a resting-place?
  A roof for when the slow, dark hours begin.
May not the darkness hide it from my face?
  You cannot miss that inn.

Shall I meet other wayfarers at night?
  Those who have gone before.
Then must I knock, or call when just in sight?
  They will not keep you waiting at that door.
 
Shall I find comfort, travel-sore and weak?
  Of labour you shall find the sum.
Will there be beds for me and all who seek?
  Yea, beds for all who come.

Female Deielia Phaon

Deielia Phaon (异色多纹蜻). Female.

One of the smaller dragonflies of the summer ponds, the largest fall a little short of 5cm in length. The females have alternating black and yellow vertical stripes on their breasts, and a row of yellow vertical spots in the centre and on both sides of the back of abdominal segments 2 to 7. Some females are fully yellow and black, while others have also have some shade of powdery blue.

Books and Food Enough

quid sentire putas? quid credis, amice, precari?
sit mihi quod nunc est, etiam minus, et mihi vivam
quod superest aevi, si quid superesse volunt di;
sit bona librorum et provisae frugis in annum
copia, neu fluitem dubiae spe pendulus horae.

What do you think I think about? What do you think, my friend, that I pray for? That I may keep what I have or even less, and to live for myself for whatever part of life remains for me, if the gods will it to remain; may I have an ample supply of books and provisions to last through the year; and may I not waver, hanging on to the hope of the fickle hour.

Horace, Epistles, I.18.108-110. My translation.

Lamprosema Tampiusalis

Lamprosema tampiusalis (黄环蚀叶野螟).

A fairly common moth on Yuelu Mountain: resting in the afternoon by one of the remaining woodland streams, I saw many of them fluttering about or perching on the moist rocks.

Longing for Home

ἀλλὰ καὶ ὣς ἐθέλω καὶ ἐέλδομαι ἤματα πάντα
οἴκαδέ τ᾽ ἐλθέμεναι καὶ νόστιμον ἦμαρ ἰδέσθαι.
εἰ δ᾽ αὖ τις ῥαίῃσι θεῶν ἐνὶ οἴνοπι πόντῳ,
τλήσομαι ἐν στήθεσσιν ἔχων ταλαπενθέα θυμόν:
ἤδη γὰρ μάλα πολλὰ πάθον καὶ πολλὰ μόγησα
κύμασι καὶ πολέμῳ: μετὰ καὶ τόδε τοῖσι γενέσθω.

Yet even so every day I desire and long to reach my home and to see the day of my return. And if some god would break me on the wine-red sea, I shall endure it, as I hold in my breast a soul that endures great afflictions: as before this I have suffered much and endured much in waves and in war; let this be one of those thing.

Homer, Odyssey, V.219-224. My translation.

Female Oriental Blue Dasher

Oriental Blue Dasher (Brachydiplax chalybea, 蓝额疏脉蜻).

The female of the species is yellow with distinctive black markings. Sometimes this dragonfly is called a rufous-backed marsh hawk or a yellow-patched lieutenant, the latter name is most appropriate for both genders.

The Silkworm and the Spider

Tomás de Iriarte (1750-1791)
‘El gusano de seda y la araña’

Trabajando un Gusano su capullo,
La Araña, que texía á toda prisa,
De esta suerte le habló con falsa risa
Mui propia de su orgullo:
¿Qué dice de mi tela el seor Gusano?
Esta mañana la empecé temprano,
Y ya estará acabada á mediodía.
Mire qué sutil es, mire qué bella....
El Gusano con sorna respondía:
Usted tiene razon: así sale ella.

‘The Silkworm and the Spider’

While a Worm was working on his cocoon,
The Spider, who was weaving fast,
Spoke to him in mock jest,
What does Mr. Worm have to say about my web?
I started early this morning
And it will be finished by noon.
See how delicate it is, behold how beautiful....
The Worm replied sarcastically:
You are right: that is how it comes out.

Tomas de Iriarte, Fabulas literarias, ed. by Jaime Fitzmaurice-Kelly (Oxford: OUP, 1917; 1782), p. 5. My translation.

Green-tinge Spiderlily

Green-tinge Spiderlily (Hymenocallis speciosa, 蜘蛛兰).

People have brought any different new plants to Yuelu Mountain over thousands of years. This Caribbean plant grows along the wall of one of the war memorials, and a few renegade plants have spread elsewhere nearby.

Another Paddy Frog

The few ponds around Yuelu Mountain often contain vociferous frogs and toads throughout the summer. This frog however was out on a quiet trekking across a dry hillside. It is some member of the Fejervarya genus, perhaps a Hong Kong rice-paddy frog (fejervarya multistriata, 泽陆蛙), though the taxonomic classification of this and related species has not been fully settled.

The Common World of Children

 The common world of children, that is something entirely different. A lonely child in his game forgets himself and everything that is round him, and his oblivion is beyond time. Into the common game of children wider spheres are drawn, and their mutual world is governed by the laws of the seasons. No amount of boredom will make boys play marbles in summer. You play marbles in spring when the frost goes; that is a grave and indisputable law, like that which commands the snowdrops to flower, or mothers to make Easter cakes. Only later can you play at touch or hide and seek, while the school holidays are the time for adventure and escapades: into the field to catch grasshoppers, or to bathe on the sly in the river. No self-respecting fellow will ever feel in summer the urge to make a bonfire; that’s not done until towards the autumn, at the time when kites are flown. Easter, summer holidays, and Christmas, fairs, village wakes, and feasts, these are important dates and big watersheds in time. The year of children has its routine, its ritual is governed by the seasons; a lonely child plays with eternity, while a pack of children play with time.

Karel Čapek, Three Novels, trans. by M. and R. Weatherall (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1948), p. 331 [An Ordinary Life, 1934].

Virgil Under the Pillow

Hildebert of Lovardin (1056-1133)

Quadam autem nocte, dum fatigatis artubus modico sopore vir Dei consuleret, videre visus est decubantium sub capite suo serpentium multitudinem, caeteraque diversi generis reptilia, quibus ille perturbatus, somnum continuare non poterat. Dehinc amoto pulvinari, librum Maronis reperit, eoque projecto, somnum duxit tranquillum. Apta rei visio, cum nihil aliud quam quaedam venena sint fabulae poetarum.

What is more, one night, as the man of God attended to his wearied limbs by sleeping a little, he seemed to see a multitude of snakes lying under his head, as well as other reptiles of various sorts. Distressed by them, he was unable to continue sleeping. Then, after removing his pillow, he found a book of Virgil’s poetry. Upon tossing it aside, he slept peacefully. The vision is well suited to the matter, since the inventions of the poets are nothing if not venomous.

Vita Sancti Hugonis, 18 in Patrologia Latina, vol. 159, col. 872A-B. Cited in The Virgilian Tradition: The First Fifteen Hundred Years, ed. by Jan M. Ziolkowski & Michael C.J. Putnam (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2008), p. 897. Jan M. Ziolkowski’s translation.

Problepsis Albidior

Problepsis albidior (白眼尺蛾).

I spotted this geometer moth, resting in plain view, during an evening walk in Wangling Park. The last time I noticed one was May of last year, its orange and silver spots are memorable.

Butterfly Flutterer

Butterfly Flutterer (Rhyothemis fuliginosa, 黑丽翅蜻).

A diminutive dragonfly, which is sometimes called the 'butterfly dragonfly'. The Chinese name means 'black-winged butterfly: whether is wings appear black or a shade of iridescent blue depends on which angle. For me they are a twilight creature, as while I might spot one or two during the day, they appear in more significant numbers around the lotus ponds in the evenings when the day begins to cool, and they disappear again before it is dark.

Epicurus on Friendship

Ὧν ἡ σοφία παρασκευάζεται εἰς τὴν τοῦ ὅλου βίου μακαριότητα, πολὺ μέγιστόν ἐστιν ἡ τῆς φιλίας κτῆσις.

Of all the means wisdom procures sublime happiness throughout the entirety of one's life, the most important by far is the acquisition of friends.

Diogenes Laertius, Vitae Philosophorum, X.1.148 [27]. My translation.

Print and Handwriting

    Print is predictable and impersonal, conveying information in a mechanical transaction with the reader’s eye.
   Handwriting, by contrast, resists the eye, reveals its meaning slowly, and is as intimate as skin.

Ruth Ozeki, A Tale for the Time Being (Edinburgh: Canongate, 2013), p. 12.

Notobitus Meleagris

Notobitus meleagris (黑竹缘蝽).

Leaf-footed bugs, enjoying the relatively cool shade of moso bamboo culms in Wangling Park. Adults and nymphs were out today, and I found some eggs on the underside of a leaf nearby.

Adult, nymph & eggs:

 

Small Cross Spider

Small Cross Spider (Argiope minuta, 小悦目金蛛).

In Spring, I frequently observed a kogane spider (argiope amoena) in Wangling Park. I have not seen it since, but today in the same park, i found two similar argiope minuta, laying in wait for their afternoon meals.

Insomnia

Crimine quo merui, iuvenis, placidissime divum,
quove errore miser donis ut solus egerem,
Somne, tuis?

For what crime, youthful Sleep the kindest of the gods, or what mistake have I alone deserved to be so wretched and to lack your gifts?

Statius, Silvae, V.4.1-3. My Translation.

Burmagomphus Sowerbyi

Burmagomphus sowerbyi (索氏缅春蜓).

An uncommon clubtail here in Changsha. I saw one by the Xiang river last August, first mistaking it for a common flangetail, before realizing, after it had flown away, that it was something rarer.  Fortunately, I have just seen another one, almost at the same spot as last year.

Endless Spring on Yuelu Mountain

玉洞仙壇長冷落，真墟岩竇色常新。
可憐城里悠悠者，不識瀟湘四季春。

The Xian altar in the jade cave has long been left desolate,
The Zhenxu rock cave is always a fresh sight.
I pity those who spend their time in the city,
They do not know the endless spring of Hunan.

Notes:
This poem is from the "Nanyue Zongsheng Collection" (南嶽總勝集) by Chen Tianfu of the Song Dynasty.

Xian: can refer to any immortal in Taoism/Chinese folklore.

Zhenxu: a grotto on Yuelu Mountain: 洞真墟福地.

The anonymous poet complains about the neglect of the sacred places on Yuelu Mountain and pities those who spend too much time in the city.

全唐詩續拾卷五十六 [Complete Tang Dynasty Poems], Volume 56, poem 174. Chinese Texts Project. My translation.

Female Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle

Japanese Rhinoceros Beetle (Trypoxylus dichotomus ssp. dichotomus, 双叉犀金龟). Female.

This afternoon Yuelu mountain was hot, breezeless and dry and activity clustered around its few still trickling streams. Where there was water there were birds, including both a mother and fledging Amur paradise flycatchers. There were also many flies and moths (I left them undisturbed) and at one stream, a large solitary beetle, climbing along the wet rocks. The female rhinoceros beetle lacks the male's cephalic horn, and she was also missing one leg, though that did not greatly reduce her mobility; insects are often battered in the wild, but often seem more so in the dry season of summer.

A Whole Life

Joachim Ringelnatz
'Ein ganzes Leben'

»Weißt du noch«, so frug die Eintagsfliege
Abends, »wie ich auf der Stiege
Damals dir den Käsekrümel stahl?«

Mit der Abgeklärtheit eines Greises
Sprach der Fliegenmann: »Gewiß, ich weiß es!«
Und er lächelte: »Es war einmal —«

»Weißt Du noch«, so fragte weiter sie,
»Wie ich damals unterm sechsten Knie
Jene schwere Blutvergiftung hatte?« —

»Leider«, sagte halb verträumt der Gatte.

»Weißt du noch, wie ich, weil ich dir grollte,
Fliegenleim-Selbstmord verüben wollte?? —
Und wie ich das erste Ei gebar?? —
Weißt du noch, wie es halb sechs Uhr war?? —
Und wie ich in die Milch gefallen bin?? — —

Fliegenmann gab keine Antwort mehr,
Summte leise, müde vor sich hin:
»Lang, lang ist’s her — — lang — — —«

'A whole Life'

In the evening, the Mayfly asked:
“Do you remember how I stole from you
That cheese crumb on the stairs?

With the detachment of an old man,
Her Husband-fly said, “Indeed, I remember!”
And he smiled, “That was a long time now —”

“Do you remember”, she asked
”How under my sixth knee
I had that severe blood poisoning?” —

“Unfortunately,” said her husband half in a dream.

“Do you remember, how, because I resented you,
I wanted to kill myself upon the the flypaper?? —
And how I gave birth to the first egg?? —
Do you remember, when it was half past five?? —
And how I fell into the milk?? — —

The Fly-husband answered her no more,
Humming softly, languidly to himself"
“It's been a long, long time — — long — — —”

Joachim Ringelnatz, Die Gedichte, ed. by Fritz & Katinka Eycken with Jabob Winter (Berlin: Haffmans Verlag bei Zweitausendeins, 2009), pp. 662-63 [1933]. My translation.

Male Sympetrum Eroticum

Sympetrum eroticum (竖眉赤蜻). Male.

A summer meadowhawk, in July they frequent both the lakes and the woods of Yuelu Mountain. The males are bright red. Their Chinese name refers to black spots on their heads that look like raised eyebrows. The are common in China and Japan where they are called natsu-akane, the 'red dragonfly of summer'.

Long-awaited Summer

Aestas ab exilio
redit exoptata,
picto ridet gremio
tellus purpurata.
Miti cum susurrio
suo domicilio
gryllus delectatur.
Hoc canore iubilo,
multiformi sibilo
nemus gloriatur.

Long-awaited summer has come from exile, the violaceous earth smiles in her painted lap. The cricket, in his home, amuses himself with a soothing whisper. With this melodious song, with this multi-voiced hissing, the forest rejoices.

Carmina Burana 74.31-40. My translation.

Baohuang Cave

Baohuang Cave (抱黄洞) on Yuelu Mountain.

According to the weathered and faded signs, it is sacred to the Taoists because Zhang Baohuang (张抱黄) and Deng Yu (邓郁) studied and ascended to heaven here. There were once Taoist monasteries nearby, and later a pavilion, but they have long been destroyed. Another folktale recalls a snake lived here and stretched its tongue to form a bridge to trick its victims. The snake was killed by Tao Kan and the Fairy Crane.

Dicelosternus Corallinus

Dicelosternus corallinus (红艳天牛).

A colourful longhorn beetle, out exploring Yuelu Mountain on a hot day. I think I have seen ones with longer antennae: perhaps this is a youngster.

The Moth

Walter de la Mare  
'The Moth'

Isled in the midnight air,
Musked with the dark's faint bloom,
Out into glooming and secret haunts
The flame cries, 'Come!'

Lovely in dye and fan,
A-tremble in shimmering grace,
A moth from her winter swoon
Uplifts her face:

Stares from her glamorous eyes;
Wafts her on plumes like mist;
In ecstasy swirls and sways
To her strange tryst.

Creeping Lilyturf

Creeping Lilyturf (Liriope spicata, 山麦冬).

It is distinguishable from similar liriope muscari by its rhizomatous roots and more humble flower spike, which does not grow much higher than its leaves. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, it is used nourishing Yin, and treating heartburn and  unsteady nerves. It is also grown as groundcover or to prevent hillside erosion, but this one was growing on its own, wild.

Thagria

Thagria (片叶蝉属).

In spite of their vivid appearance, I have not been able to discern the exact species.

In late June there were hundreds of these curious insects clustered together throughout the forests of Yuelu Mountain. They are not yet gone, but their numbers are fewer: the once crowded bushes now only expose several leafhoppers and soon it will be impossible to find any at all.

The Ant

'The Ant'
Ogden Nash

The ant has made herself illustrious
By constant industry industrious.
So what? Would you be calm and placid
If you were full of formic acid?

Eastern Horse Cicada Exuvia

Every day, more and more cicadas join the treetop chorus. Signs of their rising are new gaping holes in the sun-dried soil and the exuviae that litter the vegetation.
This is the exuvia of an eastern horse cicada (Cryptotympana atrata,  黑蚱蝉); outside the forests they are the most common.

Nature Will Try Anything Once

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2011; 1974), p. 66.

Nature is, above all, profligate. Don’t believe them when they tell you how economical and thrifty nature is, whose leaves return to the soil. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to leave them on the tree in the first place? This deciduous business alone is a radical scheme, the brainchild of a manic-depressive with limitless capital. Extravagance! Nature will try anything once. This is what the sign of the insects says. No form is too gruesome, no behavior too grotesque. If you’re dealing with organic compounds, then let them combine. If it works, if it quickens, set it clacking in the grass; there’s always room for one more; you ain’t so handsome yourself. This is a spendthrift economy; though nothing is lost, all is spent.

Male Pied Skimmer

Pied Skimmer (Pseudothemis zonata, 玉带蜻. Male.

Summer is the season for dragonflies. There are of these medium-sized pied skimmers around by the lakes and streams. These are mostly black except for part of the abdomen, which is white on males and yellow on females.

Insects and Rain

Local sayings:

蜻蜓低飞要下雨。
When dragonflies fly low, it will rain.

蚂蚁搬家要下雨。
When ants move their nests, it will rain.

My translations.

All I Want Out of Wines

"Mr. Barnes," answered the count, "all I want out of wines is to enjoy them."

Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (New York: Signet Classics, 2022; 1926), p. 59.

Giant Robber Fly

Giant Robber Fly (Promachus, 蛮食虫虻属).

Perched on one of the lower reaches of Yuelu Mountain. Comparing with descriptions in my trusty copy of Iconography of Forest Insects in Hunan China (1992), I think it is Promachus albopilosus. It is a real beast of a predatory fly: I have seen several over 3cm in length.

Lysimachia Fortunei

Lysimachia fortunei (星宿菜).

This loosestrife, with its green spires of star-like flowers, rises from the wet soil in March and blooms in summer. There are fewer wild flowers in July, but there are always a few of this on damp patches on the hills and mountains or by the waters.

Hope and Optimism

Hawai'i's snails are far from being alone in this regard. Indeed, this is the situation in which a growing number of other animals and plants find themselves today. Around the world, many individuals and their species live out their final days under human care in strange environments like zoos and captive breeding facilities, from giant tortoises in the Galápagos Islands and white rhinos in Africa to the diverse forest birds and snails of Hawai'i. With so many species at risk of extinction , as the situation gets more dire bringing all or some of the remaining individuals into these (relatively) safe spaces becomes an appealing option. But for many of them there will be no release. Reviews of reintroduction programs generally show that the majority of them fail for a variety of reasons, including an inability to secure suitable release habitat. In these cases, maintaining captive animals becomes less an act of conservation than one of slowly drawing out an extinction. Unable to halt the ongoing destruction of our time , the Anthropocene has become a period in which both the lives and deaths of other species are increasingly being shaped, more or less wisely and consciously, by the actions of (some) humans.

   What does hope look like in times like these ? What does it mean to continue to care for species in the face of ongoing , unrelenting processes of loss? Lesley Head reminds us that hope does not require optimism. We do not need to feel or believe that something is likely to come about in order to hope for it . Rather, hope is a practice of the possible.

Thom van Dooren, A World in a Shell: Snail Stories for a Time of Extinctions (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2023), p. 189.

The Very Secrets of Writing

It may be, then, that translation from one language into another may lay bare for us something of the very productive mechanisms of textuality itself—may figure as some kind of model or paradigm of the very secret of writing.

Terry Eagleton, ‘Translation and Transformation’, Stand, 19/3 (1977), 72-77 (p. 73).

Female Green Flash

Green Flash (Artipe eryx, 绿灰蝶). Female.

The hot dry season has started. Yesterday I walked in Wangling park, which was littered with fallen scarab beetles and stunned eastern horse cicadas; the latter I think were affected by gardeners watering the trees more than the heat. In the woods there were plenty of live insects to see: I was particularly taken by this butterfly, which I don't see very often, although in late fall and winter one often comes across gardenia fruits with holes burrowed into them by their larvae.

Formosana Pacifica

Formosana pacifica (太平丽管螺).

On Yuelu mountain, they are a fairly common door snail: if the weather is wet enough, I can usually spot them on the trees or moss. Now that the hot dry season is starting, I don't suspect I will be seeing many more until next Spring.

I am the very pattern of a modern Major-General...

Legati specimen conspicuum Stanlius est noui;
quidquid terra creat, gramen alit, celat humus, sagax:
reges scit Latii, scit ueterum proelia temporum,
quo sint gesta die, seu Marathon, siue sit Actium.
uix artem numeri Pythagoras ipse magis sapit;
non problema fuit quin breuiter Stanlius explicet.
fullonum tabulas litterulis hic Babyloniis
scribit; nulla sagi praeterit hunc bulla Carataci.
picturaque catus, Parrhasium Zeuxide separat,
ranarumque chorus quos sonitus fuderit haud latet.
quod quaeris? segetes, bestiolas, resque metallicas,
dux exercituum Stanlius est ut specimen nouum.
et cum quid iaculum fundaue sit dicere quiuerit,
uestalique dolis callidior uirgine bellicis,
ipas militiae primitias coeperit adsequi,
uix haerebit equo dux melior—namque fateberis.

Translated by T.W. Melluish.

In the metre of Horace, Odes I.11: ‘– u – u u – || – u u – || – u u – u x’

H. H. Huxley, Carmina: MCMLXII an anthology of Latin verses in the metres of lyric, epigram and comedy (Shrewsbury: Wilding & Son Ltd., 1963)1, p. 44.

Oriental Flower Beetle

Oriental Flower Beetle (Protaetia orientalis, 凸星花金龟).

Common summer beetle, usually they are copper or metallic green or something in between those two colours. They are fairly distinctive, but one can distinguish them from other scarab beetles by the narrow white line on either side of the pronotum and the white spots on their backs (dorsal surface). They appeared in droves during the wet part of summer and their bodies litter the ground later in the dry heat. They are fungivorous, and seem to frequent a wide range of flowers and ripened fruits.

Cottleston Pie

A.A. Milne (1882-1956), Winnie Ille Pu, trans. by Alexander Lenard (London: sumptibus Methuen, 1994; 1958), pp. 52-53:

Crustulum, crustulum, crustulum cru
Cano aenigmata, canis ac tu?
Crustulum, crustulum, crustulum crum
Cerebrum meum est fatiga-tum.

Crustulum, crustulum, crustulum cru
Volitant aves, dic volitas tu?
Crustulum, crustulum, crustulum crum
Cerebrum meum est fatiga-tum.

Crustulum, crustulum, crustulum cru
Sibilo bene, dic sibilas tu?
Crustulum, crustulum, crustulum crum
Cerebrum meum est fatiga-tum.

A.A. Milne, 'Cottleston Pie'

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
Why does a chicken? I don't know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
A fish can't whistle and neither can I.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

Common Bluebottle

Common Bluebottle (Graphium sarpedon, 青凤蝶).

As soon as the heavy rain left, hundreds of bluebottle butterflies became active. Here are three enjoying a drink in one of the many cool impromptu streams still flowing down Yuelu Mountain.

Rich People

 Frank Rich, ‘In Conversation Chris Rock’, New York Magazine (1 December 2014):

[Rich:] Is it possible that they’re just angry, whether it’s anger at Obama or Washington in general, and they just want to lash out? If you’re angry, you don’t rationally consider what’s in your self-interest.

[Rock:] Maybe. But we had Bush for eight years. They saw what that was. Apparently a lot of people want to go back to that. A lot of people think rich people are smart.

Now-you-see-it

Unfortunately, nature is very much a now-you-see-it, now-you-don’t affair. A fish flashes, then dissolves in the water before my eyes like so much salt. Deer apparently ascend bodily into heaven; the brightest oriole fades into leaves. These disappearances stun me into stillness and concentration; they say of nature that it conceals with a grand nonchalance, and they say of vision that it is a deliberate gift, the revelation of a dancer who for my eyes only flings away her seven veils. For nature does reveal as well as conceal: now-you-don't-see-it, now-you-do.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker's Creek (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2011; 1974), p. 18.

Male Serrognathus Titanus Patymelus

Serrognathus titanus ssp. platymelus (中华扁锹甲). Male.

A giant stag beetle, this subspecies is common throughout China and is fairly easy to find on wet (but not heavily raining) days in summer in Changsha. They are lugubrious and slow: carefully plotting their path with their jointed feather-tipped antennae before moving ahead. The male is much larger than the female and has large antler-like jaws, with several small teeth along the edge and two big teeth on either side towards towards the back.

Wonder

 σέβας μ᾽ ἔχει εἰσορόωντα

wonder takes me as I look on

Homer, Odyssey, VI.161. My translation.

Diversibipalium Virgatum

Diversibipalium virgatum.

A small land planarian. The species has recorded in China and is described as brownish-orange with five dark dorsal and lateral stripes, including a median dorsal stripe running onto the headplate. It was moving across a footpath on the south-east part of Yuelu Mountain after a month of heavy rains.