230 OH THE PHYSICAL POWER OF INSECTS. 



We find, in history, frequent instances of useful ideas drawn from a careful 

 attention to the works of the insect race. — The Wasp, it will be seen, was 

 practising precisely the art of paper-making, on a small scale, long ages ago, when 

 men for the want of it wrote on tables of lead, on skins, on the barks of plants, 

 &c. I am not aware that the labours of the Wasp served to instruct us in the 

 paper-manufacture, as they certainly might have done, but in all probability in 

 the earlier ages of the world, when the history of the arts was hidden in obscurity, 

 Man was often indebted to the examples set him by a large portion of the animal 

 kingdom in their works for the preservation of themselves or their offspring. At 

 the same time it is certain they have gathered nothing from us, unless I may be 

 allowed to pass to a kindred branch of Natural History, to cite a singular instance 

 mentioned by Wilson, in his American Ornithology, where we are informed of a 

 bird that used to weave an intricate nest of minute fibres and roDts of plants; but 

 since the settlement of that country they have found the thread, put out to bleach 

 by the careful American housewives, so much better fitted for their purpose, 

 that, disregarding all the rights of property, they had become notorious for 

 pilfering it. 



Mr. Beunel, when he planned his tunnelling shield, frankly acknowledged he 

 had borrowed the idea from a mining Beetle, whose success and industry in 

 cutting tunnels or galleries through the earth had some time before arrested 

 his attention. 



The late Mr. Smeaton, also, in sketching the design for Eddystone Light- 

 house, one of the most indestructible fabrics of human labour, was indebted to his 

 observations of Nature's works for the external shape of his tower. 



Again, to shew the necessity for the exercise of caution in proceeding with the 

 study of natural phenomena, where we seek to ascertain for what end the worl 

 going on is designed, I may mention an error of the ancients in considering the 

 pellets of clay, with which they often observed the Mason Bee loaded, as ballast 

 carried by the insect to steady it against the wind. The pellets, I need scarcely 

 say, are for no such purpose, but are solely used for the construction of the 

 creature's nest. Cicero has left on record an equally great error in Natural 

 History, though not immediately connected with this branch, when he speaks of 

 the Barley-grains as surrounded by a rampart of spears to defend them from the 

 ravages of the lesser birds — a very probable reading in Natural History for 

 martial age like his, but which in our times could not be passed without ridicule, 

 save for the exquisite language in which his opinions are clothed. 



The labours of insects taken collectively are of great importance to Man- 

 not so much as his assistants, like many of the higher animals (although 

 numerous instances are recorded to shew where he does receive essential benefit 

 from them), but as grievances, blastingshis prospects from the tender plants to which 



