302 TOOLS OF INSECTS AND MEN. 



the magnifying lenses, which have now opened to view, as a 

 part of insect organism, a set of admirably adapted working 

 tools, such as might well have offered models for the furnish- 

 ing of our own workshops, had not these been provided pre- 

 viously with corresponding and, in some instances, curiously 

 similar implements. Saws, files, augers, forceps, lancets, 

 tweezers, with a variety of other tools, were in possession of 

 insect artisans, while a fish-tooth, or a piece of sharpened stone 

 or wood, were the best implements which uncivilized man 

 knew how to manufacture; nor hardly could he have taken 

 hints from Nature in the absence of those developed faculties 

 requisite for the observation and understanding of Nature's 

 models. 



It would seem on the whole, then, that man, as a mechanic, 

 has not yet profited greatly by the pattern mechanisms of 

 animal bodies, or the pattern operations of instinct-taught arti- 

 ficers, a remark that applies generally, but more especially, 

 on account of their minuteness, to the tools and works of 

 insects. Since these have not hitherto been suggestively in- 

 structive, nor were, apparently, intended to instruct unculti- 

 vated man, however capable in themselves of such a purpose, 

 were all the perfect means and appliances for constructive 

 labour bestowed so richly on the insect race intended solely for 

 the use and benefit of their tiny possessors ? Have they not any 

 reference whatever to ourselves, the head intelligences of crea- 

 tion, with eyes now opened, at least in part, to the admirable 



