forward, elevates, depresses, and bends them from side to side, and will not advance further, lest it should fall. If a stick, or any other substance, be placed within reach of the feelers, the animal immediately applies them to this new object, examines whether it be sufficient to support the weight of its body, and instantly proceeds in its journey. Though most insects are provided with eyes, yet the lenses of which they consist are so small and convex, that they can see distinctly but at small distances, and, of course, must be very incompetent judges of the vicinity or remoteness of objects. To remedy this defect, they are provided with feelers, which are perpetually in motion while the animals walk. By the same instruments, they are enabled to walk with safety in the dark.

No other animals but the insect tribes have more than two eyes; but some of them have four, and others, as the spider and scorpion, have eight eyes. In a few insects, the eyes are smooth; in all the others, they are hemispherical, and consist of many thousand distinct lenses. The eyes are absolutely immoveable: but this defect is supplied by the vast number of lenses, which, from the diversity of their positions, are capable of viewing objects in every direction. By the smallness and convexity of these lenses, which produce the same effect as the object glass of a microscope, insects are enabled to see bodies that are too minute to be perceived by the human eye. Another peculiarity deserves also our notice. No animals, except a numerous tribe of four-winged insects, have more than two wings.

With regard to sex, quadrupeds, birds, and fishes, are distinguished into males and females. But the bee and the ant furnish examples of neuters, which are absolutely barren: and the earth worm, and several shell animals, are hermaphro

dite, each individual possessing the prolific powers of both male and female.

It is likewise remarkable, that all winged insects undergo three metamorphoses or changes of form the egg is discharged from the body of the female in the same manner as in other oviparous animals. By a wonderful instinct, these seemingly stupid creatures uniformly deposit their eggs on such animal or vegetable substances as furnish proper food for the worm or caterpillar, that is to be hatched by the heat of the sun. The worm or

caterpillar is the first state. The bodies of caterpillars are soft and moist. They have no wings, and are totally deprived of the faculty of generation. After continuing for some time in this reptile state, they are transformed into a chrysalis, which is drier and harder than the caterpillar. The chrysales of some insects are naked, and those of others are covered with a silken web, spun by the animals before their change is completed. In this state, many of them lie motionless, and seemingly inanimate, during the whole winter. When the spring or summer heats return, they burst from their last prison, and, from vile reptiles, are transformed into beautiful flies. In this perfect state they are exceedingly active, fly about in quest of their mates, and, after propagating their species, the females deposit their eggs, and the same circle of animation and change perpetually goes round.

Poor insect! what a little day
Of sunny bliss is thine!

And yet thou spread'st thy light wings gay,
And bidd'st them, spreading, shine.

Thou humm'st thy short and busy tune,

Unmindful of the blast;

And careless, while 'tis burning noon,

How quick that noon be past.

A show'r would lay thy beauty low;
A dew of twilight be

The torrent of thy overthrow,
Thy storm of destiny!

Then spread thy little shining wing,
Hum on thy busy lay!

For man, like thee, has but his spring;
Like thine, it fades away!

MRS. ROBINSON

Behold the insect race, ordained to keep
The lazy sabbath of a half-year's sleep;
Entombed, beneath the filmy web they lie,
And wait the influence of a kinder sky.
When vernal sunbeams pierce their dark retreat,
The heaving tomb distends with vital heat;
The full-formed brood, impatient of their cell,
Start from their trance, and burst their silken shell;
Trembling, awhile they stand, and scarcely dare
To launch at once upon the untried air:

At length assured, they catch the favouring gale,
And leave their sordid spoils, and high in ether sail,

BAKBAULD

Waked by his warmer ray, the reptile young
Come winged abroad; by the light air upborn,
Lighter, and full of soul. From every chink,
And secret corner, where they slept away
The wintry storms; or rising from their tombs,
To higher life; by myriads, forth at once,
Swarming they pour; of all the varied hues
Their beauty-beaming parent can disclose.
Ten thousand forms! ten thousand different tribes!
People the blaze. To sunny waters some
By fatal instinct fly; where on the pool

They, sportive, wheel; or, sailing down the stream,
Are snatched immediate by the quick-eyed trout,
Or darting salmon. Through the green-wood glade
Some love to stray; there lodged, amused and fed,
In the fresh leaf. Luxurious, others make
The meads their choice, and visit every flower,
And every latent herb: for the sweet task,
To propagate their kinds, and where to wrap,
In what soft beds, their young yet undisclosed,
Employs their tender care. Some to the house,
The fold, and dairy, hungry, bend their flight;

Sip round the pail, or taste the curdling cheese;
Oft, inadvertent, from the milky stream
They meet their fate; or, weltering in the bowl,
With powerless wings around them wrapt, expire.

THOMSON,

There is another peculiarity in the structure of insects. They are deprived of bones. But that defect is supplied, in some, by a membraneous or muscular skin, and, in others, by a crustaceous or horny covering. In this circumstance, insects resemble the shell-animals, whose bones constitute the external parts of their bodies.

In general, the bodies of insects are composed of a head, trunk, and abdomen. The head is commonly attached to the trunk by a joint or articulation. Beside eyes, feelers, and mouth, the heads of some insects are furnished with palpi fixed to the mouth; and they are either four or six in number. Each of them consists of two, three, or four joints, and are often mistaken for the antennæ, or feelers. These instruments seem to serve the animals instead of hands; for they employ them to bring the food to: their mouths, and to keep it steady while eating. It is asserted by Linné, and other naturalists, that the heads of insects are destitute of brains, nostrils, and ears. The minuteness of the animals under consideration may have hitherto prevented us from distinguishing these organs. If they want a brain, it is certain that their sense of seeing is acute; and we know that they are amply supplied with nerves, which produce the same effects as the brain in larger animals. If they are deprived of nostrils, the slightest attention must convince us, that some of them possess the sense of smelling in a very high degree. Upon any other supposition, how should the different species of flies, the moment they escape from the chrysalis state, distinguish, and directly approach, the different animal and vegetable sub

stances Nature has destined for their respective nourishment? A piece of meat is no sooner exposed to the air than it is covered with flesh flies, upon which they both feed and deposit their eggs. Without this sense, how should wasps, and other flies, be allured from considerable distances into bottles encrusted with honey or molasses? These, and similar actions, cannot be effects of sight; for the distance, the minuteness, and frequently the position of the food, render it impossible for the eye to discover those substances to which they instantly resort. With regard to hearing, it is more difficult to determine whether insects be endowed with this sense. We can judge of it, not by the knife of the anatomist, but by the affections and motions of the animals themselves. From several trials made on house-flies, it is thought that if these animals are really deprived of ears, they are endowed with an analogous sense, though we are ig norant of its situation.

Naturalists have limited the senses of insects to those of seeing and feeling. But the above remarks render it probable that flies possess likewise the senses of smelling and of hearing: neither should the sense of taste be denied them; for, though they may be assisted by smelling to discover and select their food, we cannot suppose that Nature has denied them the pleasure which other animals so universally derive from eating. Besides, an agreeable sensation, similar to that of taste, must accompany an action which removes the pain arising from hunger.

The mouth of insects is generally placed in the under part of the head; but, in some, it is situate in the breast. The jaws, instead of being horizontal, are often transverse, and furnished with teeth. The greater number of winged insects are provided with a proboscis or trunk, an instrument