90 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



Order II. — Bugs (Hemisptera). 



Cicadas, Bed-hugs, Squash-bugs, Tree-hoppers, Plant-lice, Shild-lice, 



Cochineal. 



As no human eye can ever penetrate the spangled 

 heavens that roll over us, covered with ruby and 

 sapphire, and the thousand changing tints that dye 

 the firmament, — as no created being can ever bring 

 into his scope of vision that illimitable space, where 

 the glittering stars unceasingly twinkle and glow, 

 and where, o'erarching all, the Milky Way presents 

 the blended light of billions of shining worlds, — so 

 no human mind can ever attain perfection in the 

 knowledge of those countless animated beings which 

 surround man in the vast green temple of Nature. 

 The utmost expansion of the human intellect can 

 comprehend only a small part of the wondrous 

 nature, life and character of the animated masses 

 around him. The most gifted genius and the high- 

 est cultivation, combined with the longest experience, 

 can only bring man to a knowledge of his ignorance 

 and incompetence, and the burning thirst for more 

 knowledge will only be satiated in adoring what it 

 cannot comprehend. True, "immortal longings are 

 within us," but mortal limits surround us on every 



