120 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



The body of the Shield-louse is oval, and the 

 bead, thorax, and abdomen run into one another so 

 imperceptibly, that the whole appearance of the 

 animal is like that of a shield, or buckler. Hence its 

 name. 



I have before remarked, and I may often have 

 occasion to repeat the remark, that to the lover of 

 Nature, nothing, even the most vile and insignificant 

 object that lives, is without some points of interest — 

 each has something curious in its construction or mode 

 of life, or manner of reproduction, or in its uses — aye, 

 and more so in the injuries it is capable of doing ! 

 It sometimes seems as if the meanest and most trivial 

 of earth's creatures were created for the express 

 purpose of working out the vastest amount of evil ! 

 As if there was nothing else to distinguish them, or 

 make them deserving of notice ! And when God-like 

 Man, the highest link in the animal creation, the last, 

 step between the creature and the Creator, when such 

 as he attempts to procure renown by the vast amount 

 of injury he can inflict ; when, undistinguished from 

 his fellows, save by the halo of destruction that sur- 

 rounds him, he mounts the throne of human glory by 

 "making countless millions mourn" — (and not a few 

 have clothed themselves with such unenviable im- 

 mortality !) — why should it not be so with the meanest 

 Insects? Independent of its curious construction, why 



