OBJECTS FOR THE MICROSCOPE. 329 



Living Objects. — These will be treated of hereafter under the head 

 Aiwnalcula. 



No part of the creation affords such an infinite variety of subjects 

 for the microscope as insects. " Insects," observe Messrs. Kirby and 

 Spence, in their Introductorij Letter to Entomology, " indeed, appear to 

 have been Nature's favourite productions, in which, to manifest her 

 power and skill, she has combined and concentrated almost all that 

 is either beautiful and graceful, interesting and alluring, or curious 

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

 her valued miniatures, she has given the most delicate touch and 

 highest finish of her pencil. Numbers she has armed with glittering 

 mail, which re'flects a lustre like that of burnished metals ; in others 

 she lights up the dazzling radiance of polished gems. Some exhibit a 

 rude exterior, like stones in their native state ; while others represent 

 their smooth and shining face after they have been submitted to the 

 tool of the polisher : others again, like so many pygmy Atlases bear- 

 ing on their backs a microcosm, by the nigged and various elevations 

 and depressions of their tuberculated crust, present to the eye of the 

 beholder no unapt imitation of the unequal surface of the earth, now 

 horrid with mis-shapen rocks, ridges, and precipices — now swelling 

 into hills and mountains — and now sinking into valleys, glens, and 

 caves ; while not a few are covered with branching spines, which 

 fancy may form into a forest of trees. 



" What numbers vie with the charming offspring of Flora in various 

 beauties ! some in the delicacy and variety of their colours, colours 

 not like those of flowers evanescent and fugitive, but fixed and du- 

 rable, surviving their subject, and adorning it as much after death as 

 they did when it was alive ; others, again, in the veining and texture 

 of their wings; and others in the rich cottony down that clothes them. 

 To such perfection, indeed, has Nature in them carried her mimetic 

 art, that you would declare, upon beholding some insects, that they 

 had robbed the trees of their leaves to form for themselves artificial 

 wings, so exactly do they resemble them in their form, substance, and 

 vascular structure; some representing green leaves, and others those 

 that are dry and withered. Nay, sometimes this mimicry is so ex- 

 quisite, that you would mistake the whole insect for a portion of the 

 branching spray of a tree. No mean beauty in some plants arises 

 from the fluting and punctation of their stems and leaves, and a simi- 

 lar ornament conspicuously distinguishes numerous insects, which 

 also imitate with multiform variety, as may particularly be seen in the 

 caterpillars of many species of the huUer^y trihe (Papi/ionidie), tlie 

 spines and prickles which are given as a Noli nie tangere armour to se- 

 veral vegetable productions. 

 ^^ In fishes the lucid scales of varied hue that cover and defend tbem 



