REMARKS ON INSECTS. S2T 



been glued to the glass for several years. If insects, also, are 

 placed beneath an exhausted receiver, and left, apparently dead, for 

 some days, they will again revive when taken out. 



All these facts seem to prove the obtuseness of feeling in insects, 

 and at the same time their astonishing retention of vitality. 

 While, therefore, I would not for a moment defend the brutality of 

 a Domitian in impaling every fly he could meet with, I think we 

 are fully justified in taking, for scientific purposes, whatever 

 insects we may require. If, indeed, an ichneumon were to remon- 

 strate with us as we removed him from our net, we might gently 

 hint to him that he himself had caused the destruction of numerous 

 caterpillars, and would continue his murderous practices even 

 if we spared his life. Indeed, the very persons who charge ento- 

 mologists with cruelty, are themselves, in many instances, guilty 

 of similar acts, with not half so good an excuse. I have occasion- 

 ally been in society where the appearance of a poor spider only 

 quietly taking a walk, or an elegant wasp which only wanted a 

 taste of fruit, has caused irrepressible consternation — tongs, shovel, 

 and poker, have been all raised for its destruction, and ere a 

 humane entomologist has had time to implore a respite, the poor 

 insect has been hurried out of life ! The fact is, even humanity (so 

 called) has its bounds, and it is as absurd to decry the taking away 

 of animal life for useful purposes (of course in as quick a way as 

 possible) as it is for the Banians in Hindostaun to establish hospi- 

 tals for the support of vermin abhorred in all other countries. And 

 yet a pseudo-humanity might reach such a pitch as this, which, 

 carried out to its full extent, would justify the establishment men- 

 tioned by Lieutenant Burnes, of a large colony of about 5000 rats, 

 at Anjar, in Cutch, one of the cities of India, which are actually 

 maintained with flour at the public expense, by a tax levied upon 

 the inhabitants ! 



The degree of sensation experienced by insects having been 

 much disputed, I shall cursorily advert to their nervous system, as 

 the only correct mode of arriving at the truth, analogical arguments 

 as to the feelings of man under the impression of pain being of no 

 value in this case, which must be at once allowed when it is recol- 

 lected that a fall from a tower which would dislocate every bone in 

 a man's body, would have no effect upon the frame even of an 

 apterous insect. In vertebrated animals the brain is in the head, 

 and all the nerves originate in the brain j hence the volition 

 impressed upon the brain is conveyed to the nerves, and the order 

 obeyed. If the brain is injured, or the head cut off, rationality and 

 life ceases. But in insects no true brain is discoverable j — a ner- 

 vous cord extends through the body, with masses, or knots, called 

 ganglions, at certain intervals. We may thus understand how it 

 is that an insect deprived of its head, or any other part of the body, 

 moves and acts as usual, because each of these ganglia is a separate 

 and independent centre of volition, and will act, therefore, either 

 with or without the rest. Cockchafers fMelolontha vulgaris) may 

 be often seen in the summer, whose entire internal system has been 



June, 1835. — vol. ii, no. xi. 8 u 



