INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



CHAPTER I. 



I X T Pv D U C T I N. 



It can never be too strongly impressed upon a mind anxious 

 for the acquisition of knowledge, that the commonest things 

 by which we are surrounded are deserving of minute and 

 careful attention. The most profound investigations of 

 Philosophy are necessarily connected with the ordinary 

 circumstances of our being, and of the world in which our 

 every-day life is spent. With regard to our own existence, 

 the pulsation of the heart, the act of respiration, the voIud- 

 tary movement of our limbs, the condition of sleep, are 

 among the most ordinary operations of our nature ; and yet 

 how long were the wisest of men struggling with dark and 

 bewildering speculations before they could oifer anything 

 like a satisfactory solution of these phenomena, and how 

 far are we still from an accurate and complete knowledge 

 of them ! The science of Meteorology, which attempts to 

 explain to us the philosophy of matters constantly before 

 our eyes, as dew, mist, and rain, is dependent for its illus- 

 trations upon a knowledge of the most complicated facts, 

 such as the influence of heat and electricity upon the air ; 

 and this knowledge is at present so imperfect, that even 

 these common occurrences of the weather, which men have 

 been observing and reasoning upon for ages, are by no 

 means satisfactorily explained, or reduced to the precision 

 that every science should aspire to. Yet, however difficult 

 it may be entirely to comprehend the phenomena we dail}^ 

 witness, everything in nature is full of instruction. Thus 



