THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 93 



the splendor of his genius, a grand and philosophic truth, 

 which a glance at the organization of insects will instantly 

 demonstrate. 



In her slightest sketches Nature knows how to unite 

 power to an exquisite fineness of mechanism ; the first 

 glance at insects proves this, and thus, so soon as their in- 

 teresting history is displayed before us, we feel no longer 

 tempted to treat them with the disdain that poets have 

 shown. A simple butterfly, a single fly, humbles the pride 

 of man, and in spite of all he can do levels his forests, de- 

 vours his crops, and reduces him to despair. 



Simple little two-winged flies, gnats and mosquitoes, the 

 puny appearance of which would never lead one to dread 

 aggression from such a quarter, are nevertheless enemies of 

 the most inconvenient kind to our species. In some coun- 

 tries, where they swarm by myriads on all sides, man is 

 forced to succumb to their hostility, and only avoids their 

 attacks by adapting his abode and manner of living to the 

 emergency. At the time when the mosquitoes are most 

 prevalent in Senegal, the negroes, notwithstanding the con- 

 straint of such a kind of life, remain constantly enveloped 



which it presently enters, the sheath remaining without and bending into an 

 angle as the lancets descend. When the weapon has penetrated to its base a 

 distance of one sixth of an inch or more the lancets move laterally, and thus 

 cut the flesh on either side, promoting the flow of blood from the superficial ves- 

 sels ; at the same moment a highly irritative fluid is poured into the wound, 

 which has the effect of diluting the blood, and thus of rendering it more capable 

 of flowing up the slender central tube into the throat of the insect. It then sucks, 

 if undisturbed, till its stomach is filled to repletion, leaving a painful tumor ac- 

 companied with an intolerable itching. It is the female gnat alone which is 

 noxious ; the male, whose proboscis is feathered, has no power of sucking blood. 



