4 Tr ansae tions . — Miscellaneous . 



injurious insects, it is necessary that we should know and 

 appreciate the strength and resources of the enemy he has 

 to meet. To this end I purpose to call attention to the 

 number and nature of the hosts which are always threatening 

 the produce of our cultivations. As you are aware, all true 

 insects are comparatively small animals belonging to the 

 articulate sub-kingdom having the body divided into three 

 portions, from which fact the title "insecta " has been applied 

 to them. They are, in general, covered with a coriaceous 

 or horny integument, serving as an external skeleton. They 

 are capable for the most part of flight, having either two 

 or four wings, and they usually undergo three transforma- 

 tions from egg to maturity. These characters may not always 

 be evident, yet in no instance are they decidedly and truly 

 absent. Departures in degree from a given type and modifi- 

 cations in the detail of structure are met with in every class 

 of animal life, but the essentials upon which the claim of 

 species is in any case founded remain — subject to the law 

 of evolution — practically inviolate. As in the case of the 

 bat, with its structure for flight, and of the whale, with its 

 oceanic habits, these apparently abnormal habits do not 

 remove them from among the Mammalia. 



It has been said by a great entomologist that insects are 

 Nature's favourite productions, in which, in order to manifest 

 her skill and power, she has combined all that is either 

 beautiful and graceful, interesting and alluring, or curious 

 and singular in every other class of her children. To these, 

 her valued miniatures, she has given the most delicate touch 

 and highest finish of her pencil. Nor has she been lavish 

 only in ornamenting these privileged tribes. In other re- 

 spects she has been equally unsparing of her favours. To 

 some she has given horns nearly the counterparts of those 

 of various quadrupeds ; some are covered with bristles, others 

 with spines ; some are of the richest hues, sparkling like 

 the ruby, the topaz, the sapphire, and the amethyst in the 

 rays of the sun ; some gleam in polished armour — 



Like some stern warrior formidably bright, 

 Their steely sides reflect a gleaming light ; 



others are dull of colour and of strange form and aspect; 

 some resemble withered leaves or bits of stick, and find 

 security in the resemblance. 



To leap, to run, to bore into the ground or drive galleries 

 through timber, to fly through the air, to gambol in the water 

 and dive and swim are among the endowments of insects. 

 Some build structures more wonderful than the pyramids ; 

 some gleam with phosphorescent radiance, and many are 

 armed with poisonous weapons. They furnish us with silk, 



