of their bodies 2.-We admire with reason the coats of quadrupeds, whether their skins be covered with pile, or wool, or fur, yet are not perhaps aware that a vast variety of insects are clothed with all these kinds of hair, but infinitely finer and more silky in texture, more brilliant and delicate in colour, and more variously shaded than what any other animals can pretend to.

In variegation insects certainly exceed every other class of animated beings. Nature, in her sportive mood, when painting them, sometimes imitates the clouds of heaven; at others, the meandring course of the rivers of the earth, or the undulations of their waters: many are veined like beautiful marbles; others have the sem-blance of a robe of the finest net-work thrown over them; some she blazons with heraldic insignia, giving them to bear in fields sable-azure-vert-gules-argent and or, fesses-bars-bends-crosses-crescents-stars, and even animals. On many, taking her rule and compasses, she draws with precision mathematical figures; points, lines, angles, triangles, squares, and circles. On others she pourtrays, with mystic hand, what seem like hieroglyphic symbols, or inscribes them with the characters and letters of various languages, often very correctly formed; and, what is more extraordinary, she has registered in others figures which correspond with several dates of the Christian era ".

Nor has nature been lavish only in the apparel and

a Hairs of many of the Apide. Mon. Ap. Ang. I. t. 10, ** d. 1. f. 1.b. Ptinus imperialis, L. c Trichius delta, F.

d Prionus longimanus, F. Papilio C. album, L. Bombyx 4, Noctua y, F.

On the underside of the primary wings near the margin in Papilio Aglaia, Lathonia, Silene, &c.

ornament of these privileged tribes; in other respects she has been equally unsparing of her favours. To some she has given fins like those of fish, or a beak resembling that of birds; to others horns, nearly the counterparts of those of various quadrupeds. The bull", the stage, the rhinoceros, and even the hitherto vainly sought for unicorn, have in this respect many representatives amongst insects. One is armed with tusks not unlike those of the elephant ; another is bristled with spines, as the porcupine and hedge-hog with quills &; a third is an armadillo in miniature; the disproportioned hind legs of the kangaroo give a most grotesque appearance to a fourth 1; and the threatening head of the snake is found in a fifth. It would, however, be endless to produce all the instances which occur of such imitations; and I shall only remark that, generally speaking, these arms and instruments in structure and finishing far exceed those which they resemble.

But further, insects not only mimic, in a manner infinitely various, every thing in nature, they may also with very little violence be regarded as symbolical of beings out of and above nature. The butterfly, adorned with every beauty and every grace, borne by radiant wings through the fields of ether, and extracting nectar from every flower, gives us some idea of the blessed inhabitants of happier worlds, of angels, and of the spirits of the just arrived at their state of perfection. Again,

Empis, L. Asilus, L.

Lucanus Cervus, L.

e Dynastes Hercules, Macleay.

* Hispa, L.

Raphidia ophiopsis, L.

b Copris Taurus, F.
d Oryctes, Latr.

↑ Melitta spinigera, Kirby.
h Cetonia macropus, Mus.
Francill.

other insects seem emblematical of a different class of unearthly beings: when we behold some tremendous for the numerous horns and spines projecting in horrid array from their head or shoulders;-others for their threatening jaws of fearful length, and armed with cruel fangs: when we survey the dismal hue and demoniac air that distinguish others, the dens of darkness in which they live, the impurity of their food, their predatory habits and cruelty, the nets which they spread, and the pits which they sink to entrap the unwary, we can scarcely help regarding them as aptly symbolizing evil demons, the enemies of man, or of impure spirits for their vices and crimes driven from the regions of light into darkness and punishment ".

The sight indeed of a well-stored cabinet of insects will bring before every beholder not conversant with them, forms in endless variety, which before he would not have thought it possible could exist in nature, resembling nothing that the other departments of the animal kingdom exhibit, and exceeding even the wildest fictions of the most fertile imaginations. Besides prototypes of beauty and symmetry, there in miniature he will be amused to survey (for the most horrible creatures when deprived of the power of injury become sources of interest and objects of curiosity), to use the words of our great poet,

all prodigious things

Abominable, unutterable, and worse

Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimæras dire.

a This idea seems to have been present to the mind of Linné and Fabricius, when they gave to insects such names as Belzebub, Belial, Titan, Typhon, Nimrod, Geryon, and the like.

But the pleasures of a student of the science to which I am desirous of introducing you, are far from being confined to such as result from an examination of the exterior form and decorations of insects; for could these, endless as they seem, be exhausted, or, wonderful as they are, lose their interest, yet new sources, exuberant in amusement and instruction, may be opened, which will furnish an almost infinite fund for his curiosity to draw upon. The striking peculiarity and variety of structure which they exhibit in their instruments of nutrition, motion, and oviposition, in their organs of sensation, generation, and the great fountains of vitality, indeed their whole system, anatomically considered, will open a world of wonders to you with which you will not soon be satiated, and during your survey of which you will at every step feel disposed to exclaim with the Roman naturalist-"In these beings so minute, and as it were such non-entities, what wisdom is displayed, what power, what unfathomable perfectiona!" But even this will not bring you to the end of your pleasures: you must leave the dead to visit the living; you must behold insects when full of life and activity, engaged in their several employments, practising their various arts, pursuing their amours, and preparing habitations for their progeny: you must notice the laying and kind of their eggs, their wonderful metamorphoses; their instincts, whether they be solitary or gregarious, and the other miracles of their history-all of which will open to you a richer mine of amusement and instruction, I speak it without hesitation, than any other department of Natural

a Plin. Hist. Nat. 1. 11. c. 2.

History can furnish. A minute enumeration of these particulars would be here misplaced, and only forestall what will be detailed more at large hereafter; but a rapid glance at a very few of the most remarkable of them, may serve as a stimulus to excite your curiosity, and induce you to enter with greater eagerness into the wide field to which I shall conduct you.

The lord of the creation plumes himself upon his powers of invention, and is proud to enumerate the various useful arts and machines to which they have given birth, not aware that "He who teacheth man knowledge" has instructed these despised insects to anticipate him in many of them. The builders of Babel doubtless thought their invention of turning earth into artificial stone, a very happy discovery; yet a little beeb had practised this art, using indeed a different process, on a small scale, and the white ants on a large one, ever since the world began. Man thinks that he stands unrivalled as an architect, and that his buildings are without a parallel among the works of the inferior orders of animals. He would be of a different opinion did he attend to the history of insects: he would find that many of them have been architects from time immemorial; that they have had their houses divided into various apartments, and containing staircases, gigantic arches, domes, colonnades, and the like; nay, that even tunnels are excavated by them so immense, compared with their own size, as to be twelve times bigger than that projected by Mr. Dodd to be carried under the Thames at Gravesend c.

a Gen. xi. 3.

The white ants.

b Megachile muraria, Latr.