Such are the most noted animals of the serpent tribe; but to recount all would be a vain as well as an useless endeavour. In those countries where they abound their discriminations are so numerous and their colours so various, that every thicket seems to produce a new animal. The same serpent is often found to bring forth animals of eight or ten different colours; and the naturalist who attempts to arrange them by that mark will find that he has made distinctions which are entirely disowned by Nature; however, a very considerable num

ber might be added to enlarge the catalogue; but having supplied a general history, the mind turns away from a subject where every object presents something formidable or loathsome to the imagination. Indeed, the whole tribe resemble each other so nearly that the history of one may almost serve for every other. They are all terrible to the imagination-all frightful to behold in their fury, and have long been considered as a race of animals between whom and man there is a natural antipathy.

BOOK I.-CHAP. I.

OF INSECTS IN GENERAL.

Having gone through the upper ranks of Nature, we descend to that of insects a subject almost inexhaustible from the number of its tribes and the variety of their appearance. Those who have professedly written on this subject seem to consider it as one of the greatest that can occupy the human mind, as the most pleasing in Animated Nature. After an attentive examination," says Swammerdam, "of the nature and anatomy of the smallest as well as the largest animals, I cannot help allowing the least an equal or perhaps a superior, degree of dignity. If, while we dissect with care the larger animals we are filled with wonder at the elegant disposition of their parts, to what a height is our astonishment raised when we discover all these parts arranged in the least in the same regular manner! Notwithstanding the smallness of ants, nothing hinders our preferring them to the largest animals, if we consider either their unwearied diligence, their wonderful strength, or their inimitable propensity to labour. Their amazing love to their young is still more unparalleled than among the larger classes. They not only daily carry them to such places as may afford them food, but if by accident they are killed, and even cut into pieces, they with the uttermost tenderness will carry them away piecemeal in their arms. Who can show such an example among the larger animals, which are dignified with the title of perfect? Who can find an instance in any other creature that can come into competition

with this ?"

Such is the language of a man who, by long study, became enamoured of his subject; but to those who judge less partially, it will be found that the insect tribe for every reason deserve but the last and lowest rank in Animated Nature. As in mechanics the most complicated machines are required to perform the nicest operations, so in anatomy the noblest animals are most variously and wonderfully made. Of all living beings man offers the most wonderful variety in his internal conformation; quadrupeds come next, and other animals follow in proportion to their powers or their excellen cies. Insects seem of all others the most imperfectly formed: from their minuteness, the dissecting knife can

go but a short way in the investigations; but one thing argues an evident imperfection, which is, that many of them can live a long time, though deprived of those organs which are necessary to life in the higger ranks of Nature. Many of them are furnished with lungs and a heart, like nobler animals; yet the caterpillar continues to live though its heart and lungs (which is often the case) are entirely eaten away.

But it is not from their conformation alone that insects are inferior to other animals, but from their instincts also. It is true that the ant and the bee present us with very striking instances of assiduity; but how far are theirs beneath the marks of sagacity exhibited in the bound of the stag! a bee taken from the swarm is totally helpless and inactive, incapable of giving the smallest variation to its instincts: it has but one single method of operating, and if put from that it can turn to no other. In pursuits of the hound there is something like a choice; in the labours of the bee the whole appears like necessity or compulsion.

If insects be considered as bearing a relation to man, and in assisting him in the pleasures or necessities of life, they will, even in this respect, sink in comparison with the larger tribes of Nature. It is true that the bee, the silk-worm, the cochineal fly, and the cantharides, render him signal services; but how many others of this class ere either noxious or totally unserviceable to him. Even in a country like ours, where all the noxious animals have been reduced by repeated assiduity, the insect tribes still maintain their ground, and are but too often but unwelcome intruders upon the fruits of human industry. But in more uncultivated regions their annoyance and devastations are terrible. What an uncomfortable life the natives lead in Lapland and some parts of America, where if a candle be lighted the insects swarm in such abundance as instantly to extinguish it with their numbers-where the inhabitants are obliged to smear their bodies and faces with tar, or some other composition, to prevent them from the puncture of their minute enemies-where, though millions are destroyed, famished millions are still seen to succeed, and to make the torture endless!

Their amazing number is also an argument of their imperfection. It is a rule that obtains through all Na ture that the nobler animals are slowly produced, and that Nature acts with a kind of dignified economy; but

the meaner births are lavished in profusion, and thousands are brought forth merely to supply the necessities of the more favourite objects of Creation. Of all other productions in Nature insects are the most numerous. Vegetables that cover the surface of the earth bear no proportion to their multitudes; and though at first sight herbs of the field seem to be the parts of organized Nature produced in the greatest abundance, yet upon minuter inspection we shall find every plant supporting a number of scarce perceptible creatures, that fill up the various stages of youth, vigour, and age in the compass of a few days' existence.

All other animals are capable of some degree of education; their instincts may be suppressed or altered; the dog may be taught to fetch and carry, the bird to whistle a tune, and the serpent to dance; but the insect has but one invariable method of operating; no arts can turn it from its instincts; and, indeed, its life is too short for instruction, as a single season often terminates its exist

ence.

For these reasons the insect tribe are deservedly placed in the lowest rank of Animated Nature; and in general they seem more allied to the vegetables on which they feed than to the nobler classes above them. Many of them are attached to one vegetable, often to a single leaf; there they increase with the flourishing plant and die as it decays; a few days fill up the measure of their contemptible lives; while the ends for which they were produced or the pleasures they enjoyed, to us at least, are utterly unknown.

Yet while I am thus fixing the rank of a certain class of animals, it seems necessary to define the nature of those animals which are thus degraded. Definitions in general produce little knowledge; but here, where the shades of Nature are so intimately blended, some discrimination is necessary to prevent confusion. The smallness of the animal, for instance, does not constitute an insect; for then many of the lizard kind, which are not above two inches long, would come under this denomination; and if the smaller lizards, why not the crocodile? which would be a terrible insect indeed! In the same manner, smallness, with a slow creeping motion, does not constitute an insect; for though snails might be called insects with the same propriety, the whole tribe of sea shell-fish would then have equal pretensions, and a very troublesome innovation would be brought into our language, which is already formed. Excluding such animals, therefore, from the insect tribe, we may define insects to be little animals without red blood, bones, or cartilages, furnished with a trunk, or else a mouth, opening lengthwise, with eyes which they are incapable of covering, and with lungs which have their openings on the sides. This definition comprehends the whole class of insects, whether with or without wings whether in their caterpillar or butterfly state-whether produced in the ordinary method of generation between male and female, or from an animal that is itself both male and female, or from the same animal cut into several parts, and each part producing a perfect animal. From hence it appears that in this class of animals there are numerous distinctions, and that a general description will by no means serve for all. Almost every species has its own distinct history, and exhibits manners, appetites, and modes of propagation peculiarly its own. In the larger ranks of existence, two animals that nearly resemble each other in form will be found to have a similar history; but here insects almost entirely alike will be often found perfectly dissimilar, as well in their manner of bringing forth and subsisting as in the changes which they undergo during their short lives. Thus as this class is prolific beyond computation, so are its varieties multiplied beyond the power of description. The attempt to enumerate all the species of a fly or a moth would be very fruitless: but to give a history of all would be utterly impracticable. So various are the appetites,

the manners, and the lives of this humble class of beings, that every species requires its distinct history. An exact plan, therefore, of Nature's operations in this minute set of creatures is not to be expected; and yet such a general picture may be given as is sufficient to show the protection which Providence affords its smallest as well as its largest productions, and to display that admirable circulation in Nature by which one set of living beings find subsistence from the destruction of another, and by which life is continued without a pause in every part of the Creation.

Upon casting a slight view over the whole insect tribe just when they are supposed to rouse from their state of annual torpidity, when they begin to feel the genial influence of spring, and again exhibit new life in every part of Nature, their numbers and their varieties seem to exceed all powers of calculation, and they are indeed too great for description. When we look closer, however, we shall find some striking similitudes, either in their propagation, their manners, or their form, that give us a hint for grouping several of them into one description, and thus enabling us to shorten the labour of a separate history for every species Swammerdam, Reaumur, and Linnæus have each attempted to abridge the task of description by throwing a number of similar animals into distinct classes, and thus making one general history stand for all. I will avail myself of their labours; and, uniting their general distinctions, throw the whole class of insects into four separate distributions, giving under each the history of every species that seems to me considerable enough to deserve our notice. Thus our labour will be shortened; and the very rank in which an insect is placed will in some measure exhibit a considerable part of its history.

In our cursory inspection of the insect tribe, the first animals that offer themselves are those which want wings, that appear crawling about on every plant and on every spot of earth we regard with any degree of attention. Of these some never obtain wings at any period of their existence, but are destined to creep on the vegetable or the spot of earth where they are stationed for their whole lives. On the contrary, others are only candidates for a more happy situation, and only wait their growing wings, when they may be said to arrive at their state of full perfection.

Those that never have wings, but creep about till they die, may be considered as constituting the FIRST CLASS of insects. All these, the flea and the wood-louse only excepted, are produced from an egg; and when once they break the shell they never suffer any further change of form, but continue to grow larger till they die. Thus the louse or the spider are produced from an egg, never suffering any alteration when once they are excluded; but, like the chicken or the duck, remaining invariably the same from their birth to their dissolution.

The SECOND ORDER of insects consists of such as have wings; but which, when produced from the egg, have those wings cased up in such a manner as not to appear. This casing up of the wing, however, does not prevent the animal's running, leaping, and moving with its natural celerity; but when the case bursts, and the wings have a power of expanding, all the animal's motions become more extensive, and the animal arrives at full perfection. Thus the grasshopper, the dragonfly, and the ear-wig have their wings at first bound down; but when the skin that, like a pair of stays, kept them confined bursts, they are then expanded, and the animal pursues the purposes for which it was produced.

The THIRD ORDER of insects is of the moth and butterfly kind. These all have four wings, each covered with a mealy substance of various colonrs, which when handled comes off upon the fingers; and, if examined by the microscope, will appear like scales, with which the wing is nicely embroidered all over, These, also, are produced in a manner peculiar to themselves. They are at first

hatched from an egg, from whence proceeds a caterpillar that eats, and often casts, its skin; the caterpillar, having divested itself for the last time, assumes a new covering, which is called a chrysalis, or the cone in the silk-worm, in which it continues hidden till it comes forth a perfect moth or butterfly.

The FOURTH ORDER is of those winged insects which come from a worm instead of a caterpillar, and yet go through changes similar to those which moths and but terflies are seen to undergo. They are at first excluded from the egg as a worm, and then become a chrysalis: in some their wings and legs are seen; in others the animal is quite detached from the cone in which it is concealed; but all at length break their prison, and come out perfect winged animals-some furnished with two wings and some with four. The wings of all these differ from those of the butterfly and moth kind, by not having the mealy scales which are ever found on the wings of the former. In this class we may place the numerous tribes of gnats, beetles, bees, and flies.

To these I will add, as a FIFTH ORDER, a numerous tribe lately discovered, to which naturalists have given the name of Zoophytes. These do not go through the ordinary forms of generation, but may be propagated by dissection. Some of these, though cut into a hundred parts, still retain life in each, and are endued with such a vivacious principle that every part will in a short time become a perfect animal. They seem a set of creatures placed between animals and vegetables, and make the shade that connect Animated Nature and Insensible Nature. To this class belong the polypus, the earth-worm, and all the varieties of the sea-nettle. Having thus given a general distribution of insects, I will proceed to describe each class in the order I have mentioned them, beginning with insects without wings, as they more nearly resemble the higher ranks of Nature as well in their habits as their conformation.

CHAP. II.

OF INSECTS WITHOUT WINGS.

Every moment's observation furnishes us with instances of insects without wings; but the difficulty is to distinguish those which are condemned continually to lead reptile lives from such as only wait the happy moment of transmutation. For this nothing but a long and intimate acquaintance will suffice; but in general all animals resembling the flea, the louse, the spider, the bug, the wood-louse, the water-louse, and the scorpion, never acquire wings, but are produced from the egg in that form which they never change after wards.

If we consider this class as distinct from others, we shall find them in general longer lived than the rest, and often continuing their term beyond one season, which is the ordinary period of an insect's existence. They seem also less subject to the influence of the weather, and often endure the rigours of winter without being numbed into torpidity. The whole race of moths, butterflies, bees, and flies are rendered lifeless by the return of cold weather; but we need not be told that the louse, the flea, and many of these wingless creatures that seem formed to teaze mankind, continue their painful depredations the whole year round.

They come to perfection in the egg, as was said before; and it sometimes bappens that when the animal is interrupted in performing the offices of exclusion the young ones burst the shell within the parent's body, and are thus brought forth alive. This not unfrequently happens with the wood-louse and others of the kind, which are sometimes seen producing eggs, and some times young ones perfectly formed.

Though these creatures are perfect from the begin ning, yet they are often during their existence seen to change their skin: this is a faculty which they possess in common with many of the higher ranks of animals, and which answers the same purposes. However tender their skins may seem to our feel, yet, if compared to the animal's strength and size, they will be found to resemble a coat of mail, or, to speak more closely, the shell of a lobster. By this skin the animals are defended from accidental injuries, and particularly from the attacks of each other. Within this they continue to grow, till their bodies become so large as to be imprisoned in their own covering, and then the shell bursts, but is quickly replaced by a new one.

Lastly, these animals are endued with a degree of strength for their size that at first might exceed credibility. Had man an equal degree of strength, bulk for bulk, with a louse or a flea, the history of Samson would be no longer miraculous. A flea will draw a chain a hundred times heavier than itself; and, to compensate for this force, will eat ten times its own size of provisions in a single day.

CHAP. III.

OF THE SPIDER AND ITS VARIETIES.

The animal that deserves our first notice in this principal order of insects is the spider, whose manners are of all others the most subtle, and whose instincts are most various. Formed for a life of rapacity, and incapable of living upon any other than insect food, all its habits are calculated to deceive and surprise; it spreads toils to entangle its prey; it is endued with patience to expect its coming; and is possessed of arms and strength to destroy it when fallen into the snare.

In this country, where all the insect tribes are kept under by human assiduity, the spiders are but small and harmless. We are acquainted with few but the house. spider, that spreads its toils from tree to tree, and rests in the centre; the wandering-spider, that has no abode like the rest; and the field-spider, that is sometimes seen mounting, web and all, into the clouds. These are the chief of our native spiders; which, though reputed venomous, are entirely inoffensive. But they form a much more terrible tribe in Africa and America. In those regions, where all the insect species acquire their greatest growth-where the butterfly is seen to expand a wing as broad as our sparrow, and the ant to build a habiation as tall as a man-it is not to be wondered at that the spiders are seen bearing a proportionable magnitude. In fact, the bottom of the Martinico spider's body is as large as a hen's egg, and covered all over with hair. Its web is strong and its bite dangerous. It is happy for us, however, that we are placed at a distance from these formidable creatures, and that we can examine their history without feeling their resentment.

Every spider has two divisions in its body. The forepart, containing the head and breast, is separated from the hinder part or belly by a very slender thread, through which, however, there is a communication from one part to the other. The fore-part is covered with a hard shell, as well as the legs, which adhere to the breast. The hinder-part is clothed with a supple skin, beset all over with hair. They have several eyes all round the head, brilliant and acute; these are sometimes eight in number, sometimes but six-two behind, two before, and the rest on each side. Like all other insects their eyes are immoveable, and they want eye-lids; but this organ is fortified with a transparent horny substance, which at once secures and assists their vision. As the animal procures its subsistence by the most watchful attention, so large a number of eyes was necessary to give it the