AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 235 



morning the bird was an inch and a half under ground, and the trench 

 remained open the whole day, the corpse seeming as if laid out upon a 

 bier, surrounded with a rampart of mould. In the evening it had sunk 

 half an inch lower, and in another da^ the work was completed and the 

 bird covered. — M. Gleditsch continued to add other small dead animals, 

 which were all sooner or later buried : and the result of his experiment 

 was, that in fifty days four beetles had interred in the very small space of 

 earth allotted to them, twelve carcasses ; viz. four frogs, three small birds, 

 two fishes, one mole, and two grasshoppers, besides the entrails of a fish, 

 and two morsels of the lungs of an ox. In another experiment a single 

 beetle buried a mole forty times its own bulk and weight in two days. 

 It is plain that all this labor is incurred for the sake of placing in security 

 the future young of these industrious insects along with a necessary pro- 

 vision of food. One mole would have sufficed a long time for the repast 

 of the beetles themselves, and they could have more conveniently fed 

 upon it above ground than below. But if they had left thus exposed the 

 carcass in which their eggs were deposited, both would have been exposed 

 to the imminent risk of being destroyed at a mouthful by the first fox or 

 kite that chanced to espy them. 



At the first view I dare say you feel almost inclined to pity the little 

 animals doomed to exertions apparently so dlsproportioned to their size. 

 You are ready to exclaim that the pains of so short an existence, engrossed 

 with such arduous and incessant toil, must far outweigh the pleasures. 

 Yet the inference would be altogether erroneous. What strikes us as 

 wearisome toil, is to the little agents delightful occupation. The kind 

 Author of their being has associated the performance of an essential duty 

 with feelings evidently of the most pleasurable description ; and, like the 

 affectionate father whose love for his children sweetens the most painful 

 labors, these little insects are never more happy than when thus actively 

 engaged. "A bee," as Dr. Paley has well observed, " amongst the flow- 

 ers in spring (when it is occupied without intermission in collecting farina 

 for its young or honey for its associates), is one of the cheerfullest objects 

 that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment — so busy 

 and so pleased."^ 



Of the sources of exquisite gratification which every rural walk will 

 open to you, while witnessing in the animals themselves those marks of 

 affection for their unseen progeny of which I have endeavored to give you 

 a slight sketch, it will be none of the least fertile to examine the various 

 and appropriate instruments with which insects have been furnished for 

 the effective execution of their labors. The young of the saw-fly tribe 

 (^Serrifera^) are destined to feed upon the leaves of rose-trees and 

 various other plants. Upon the branches of these the parent fly deposits 

 her eggs in cells symmetrically arranged ; and the instrument with which 

 she forms them is a saw, somewhat like ours but far more ingenious and 

 perfect, being toothed on each side, or rather consisting of two distinct 

 saws, with their backs (the teeth or serratures of which are themselves 

 often serrated, and the exterior flat sides scored and toothed), which play 



» Gleditsch, Physic. Bot. CEcon. Abhandel. iii. 200—227. 

 * Natural Theology, 497. 



^ Latreille denominates this tribe Securifera ; but as the tool of these insects resembles a 

 iaro and not a hatchet, we have ventured to change it to Serrifera, which is more appropriate. 



