OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 37 



But as we cannot well guard against the injuries pro- 

 duced by insects, or remove the evil, whether real or 

 arising from misconceptions respecting then), which they 

 occasion, unless we have some knowledge of them ; so 

 neither without such knowledge can we apply them, when 

 beneficial, to our use. Now it is extremely probable that 

 they might be made vastly more subservient to our ad- 

 vantage and profit than at present, if we were better ac- 

 quainted with them. It is the remark of an author, who 

 iiimself is no entomologist : " We have not taken animals 

 enough into alliance with us. The more spiders there 

 were in the stable, the less would the horses suffer from 

 the flies. The great American fire-fly should be imported 

 into Spain to catch mosquitos. In hot countries a re- 

 ward should be offered to the man who could discover 

 what insects feed upon fleas ^." It would be worth our 

 while to act upon this hint, and a similar one of Dr. 

 Darwin. Those insects might be collected and preserved 

 that are known to destroy the Aphides and other inju- 

 rious tribes ; and we should thus be enabled to direct 

 their operations to any quarter where they would be most 

 serviceable ; but this can never be done till experimental 

 agriculturists and gardeners are conversant with insects, 

 and acqiuiinted with their properties and economy. How 

 is it that the Great Being of beings preserves the system 

 which he has created from permanent injury, in conse- 

 quence of the too great redundancy of any individual 

 species, but by employing one creature to prey upon an- 

 other, and so overruling and directing the instincts of all, 

 that they may operate most where they are most wanted ! 

 We cannot better exercise the reasoning powers and fa- 



'' Southey's Madoc, 4to, Notes, 519. 



