ing no longer fit for service, she was obliged to be broken up.

And here, I think, I see you throw aside my papers, and hear you exclaim-" Will this enumeration of scourges, plagues, and torments never be finished? Was the whole insect race created merely with punitive views, and to mar the fair face of universal nature? Are they all, as our Saviour said figuratively of one genus, the scorpion, the powerful agents and instruments of the great enemy of mankind"?" If you view the subject in another light, you will soon, my friend, be convinced that, instead of this, insects generally answer the most beneficial ends, and promote in various ways, and in an extraordinary degree, the welfare of man and animals; and that the series of evils I have been engaged in enumerating mostly occur partially, and where they exceed their natural limits; God permitting this occasionally to take place, not merely with punitive views, but also to show us what mighty effects he can produce by instruments seemingly the most insignificant: thus calling upon us to glorify his power, wisdom, and goodness, so evidently manifested whether he relaxes or draws tight the reins by which he guides insects in their course, and regulates their progress; and more particularly to ac

The ship here alluded to was the Albion, which was in such a condition from the attack of insects, supposed to be white ants, that, had not the ship been firmly lashed together, it was thought she would have foundered on her voyage honie.-Mr. Kittoe informs me that the Droguers or Draguers, a kind of lighter employed in the West Indies in collecting the sugar, sometimes so swarm with ants, of the common kind, that they have no other way of getting rid of these troublesome insects than by sinking the vessel in shallow water.

Luke x. 19.

knowledge his overruling Providence so conspicuously exhibited by his measuring them, as it were, and weighing them, and telling them out, so that, their numbers, forces and powers being annually proportioned to the work he has prescribed to them, they may neither exceed his purpose nor fall short of it.

From the picture I have drawn, and I assure you it is not overcharged, you will be disposed to admit, however, the empire of insects over the works of creation, and to own that our prosperity, comfort and happiness are intimately connected with them; and consequently that the knowledge and study of them may be extremely useful and necessary to promote these desirable ends, since the knowledge of the cause of any evil is always a principal, if not an indispensable, step towards a remedy.

I shall now bid adieu to this unpromising subject, which has so long occupied my pen, and I fear wearied your attention, and in my next bring before you a more agreeable scene, in which you will behold the benefits we receive by the ministry of insects.

I am, &c.

LETTER IX.

BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS.

INDIRECT BENEFITS.

MY last letters contained, I must own, a most melancholy though not an overcharged picture of the injuries and devastation which man, in various ways, experiences through the instrumentality of the insect world. In this and the following I hope to place before you a more agreeable scene, since in them I shall endeavour to point out in what respects these minute animals are made to benefit us, and what advantages we reap from their extensive agency.

God, in all the evil which he permits to take place, whether spiritual, moral, or natural, has the ultimate good of his creatures in view. The evil that we suffer is often a countercheck which restrains us from greater evil, or a spur to stimulate us to good: we should therefore consider every thing, not according to the present sensations of pain, or the present loss or injury that it occasions, but according to its more general, remote, and permanent effects and bearings ;-whether by it we are not impelled to the practice of many virtues which otherwise might lie dormant in us-whether our moral habits are not improved—whether we are not rendered by it more prudent, cautious, and wary, more watchful to prevent evil, more ingenious and skilful to remedy it-and whether our

higher faculties are not brought more into play, and our mental powers more invigorated, by the meditation and experiments necessary to secure ourselves. Viewed in these lights, what was at first regarded as wholly made up of evil, may be discovered to contain a considerable proportion of good.

This reasoning is here particularly applicable: and if the ultimate benefit to man seems in any case problematical, it is merely because to discover it requires more extended and remote views than we are enabled by our limited faculties to take, and a knowledge of distant or concealed results which we are incompetent to calculate or discover. The common good of this terraqueous globe requires that all things endowed with vegetable or animal life should bear certain proportions to each other; and if any individual species exceeds that proportion, from beneficial it becomes noxious, and interferes with the general welfare. It was requisite therefore for the benefit of the whole system that certain means should be provided, by which this hurtful luxuriance might be checked, and all things taught to keep within their proper limits: hence it became necessary that some should prey upon others, and a part be sacrificed for the good of the whole.

Of the counterchecks thus provided, none act a more important part than insects, particularly in the vegetable kingdom, every plant having its insect enemies. Man, when he takes any plant from its natural state and makes it an object of cultivation, must expect that these agents will follow it into the artificial state in which he has placed it, and still prey upon it; and it is his business to exert his faculties in inventing means to guard against their attacks. It is a wise provision that there should exist a race

of beings empowered to remove all her superfluous productions from the face of nature; and in effecting this, whatever individual injury may arise, insects must be deemed general benefactors. Even the locusts which lay waste whole countries clear the way for the renovation of their vegetable productions, which were in danger of being destroyed by the exuberance of some individual species, and thus are fulfilling the great law of the Creator, that of all which he has made nothing should be lost. A region, Sparrman tells us, which had been choked up by shrubs, perennial plants, and hard half-withered and unpalatable grasses, after being made bare by these scourges, soon appears in a far more beautiful dress, clothed with new herbs, superb lilies, and fresh annual grasses, and young and juicy shoots of the perennial kinds, affording delicious herbage for the wild cattle and game. And though the interest of individual man is often sacrificed to the general good, in many cases the insect pests which he most execrates will be found to be positively beneficial to him, unless when suffered to increase beyond their due bounds. Thus the insects that attack the roots of the grasses, and, as has been before observed, so materially injure our herbage, the wire-worm, the larvae of Melolontha vulgaris, Tipula oleracea, &c., in ordinary seasons only devour so much as is necessary to make room for fresh shoots, and the production of new herbage; in this manner maintaining a constant succession of young plants, and causing an annual though partial renovation of our meadows and pastures. In the rich fields near Rye in Sussex I particularly observed this effect; and I have since at home remarked, that at certain times of the year dead plants may Sparrman's Voyage, i. 367.

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