we shall now proceed to a description of insects, a subject replete with endless difficulties. insects are numerous, and form many species, and their mode of life is like that of the terrestrial animals and the birds. some, like bees, are furnished with wings; others are divided into those kinds which have wings, and those which are without them, such as ants; while others, again, are destitute of both wings and feet. all these animals have been very properly called “insects,” from the incisures or divisions which separate the body, sometimes at the neck, and sometimes at the corselet, and so divide it into members or segments, only united to each other by a slender tube. in some insects, however, this division is not complete, as it is surrounded by wrinkled folds; and the flexible vertebrae of the creature, whether situate at the abdomen, or whether only at the upper part of the body, are protected by layers, overlapping each other; indeed, in no one of her works has nature more fully displayed her exhaustless ingenuity.
in large animals, on the other hand, or, at all events, in the very largest among them, she found her task easy and her materials ready and pliable; but in these minute creatures, so nearly akin as they are to nonentity, how surpassing the intelligence, how vast the resources, and how ineffable the perfection which she has displayed. where is it that she has 233 united so many senses as in the gnat?—not to speak of creatures that might be mentioned of still smaller size—where, i say, has she found room to place in it the organs of sight? where has she centred the sense of taste? where has she inserted the power of smell? and where, too, has she implanted that sharp shrill voice of the creature, so utterly disproportioned to the smallness of its body? with what astonishing subtlety has she united the wings to the trunk, elongated the joints of the legs, framed that long craving concavity for a belly, and then inflamed the animal with an insatiate thirst for blood, that of man especially! what ingenuity has she displayed in providing it with a sting,[187] so well adapted for piercing the skin! and then too, just as though she had had the most extensive field for the exercise of her skill, although the weapon is so minute that it can hardly be seen, she has formed it with a twofold mechanism, providing it with a point for the purpose of piercing, and at the same moment making it hollow, to adapt it for suction.
what teeth, too, has she inserted in the teredo, to adapt it for piercing even oak with a sound which fully attests their destructive power! while at the same time she has made wood its principal nutriment. we willingly yield our admiration to the shoulders of the elephant as they support the turret, to the stalwart neck of the bull, and the might with which it hurls aloft whatever comes in its way, to the onslaught of the tiger, or to the mane of the lion; while at the same time, nature is nowhere to be seen to greater perfection than in the very smallest of her works. for this reason then, i must beg of my readers, notwithstanding the contempt they feel for many of these objects, not to feel a similar disdain for the information i am about to give relative thereto, seeing that, in the study of nature, there are none of her works that are unworthy of our consideration.
