537 



THIRD SUBSECTION. 







RELATIONS OF INSECTS TO THE EXTERNAL 



WORLD. 



300. 



WE have now become acquainted with both the corporeal and intel- 

 lectual natures of insects, and might therefore consider their general 

 natural history as concluded; but having as yet left untouched one 

 portion of the history of the lives of these creatures, namely, their rela- 

 tion to the rest of organic nature, we will therefore appropriate a few 

 pages to the investigation of this subject. That the whole of organic 

 nature stands in close connexion together must be evident to every one 

 who has paid the least attention to the subject. When the plant dies it 

 becomes the parent of a thousand others, all chiefly indeed of lower 

 station ; the animal supports itself by deriving its nutriment from the 

 vegetable kingdom, and then itself supplies other animals., which are not 

 appointed to feed upon vegetables, with means of preservation. This 

 relation of insects to the vegetable kingdom and to other organisms will 

 form the immediate subject of our present investigation ; we shall 

 here class the conditions under which the insect continues in the 

 external world, in so far as it is only by this favourable relation that 

 that first object is attained, and these we distinguish as the places of 

 resort and the distribution of insects ; their geographical division should 

 form a component part of this chapter, and we may then devote our 

 attention to the insects of a past creation, concluding their general 

 history with this last inquiry. 



