42 ANNIVEESART ADDEESS 



"with it. Insects were made for the sustenance of the higher 

 grades of creation, and, in fulfilling their mission, they perish in 

 such countless millions that only the absence of feeling can recon- 

 cile the mind to such wholesale destruction. What would be the 

 aggregate suffering caused by the casual destruction of the number- 

 less insects we daily tread upon or otherwise destroy, in some cases, 

 devour? How many ants does a partridge eat at a meal? — how 

 many flies a swallow ? Think of the horrible cruelties perpetrated 

 on one another by different tribes of insects, if for a moment you 

 can assume them capable of feeling pain. Do you know how 

 the mason- wasp provides for the maintenance of its family ? 

 H aving bored a hole, some few inches deep, into a sandy bank or 

 rotten paling, the creature flies forth, and, seizing on a green 

 caterpillar, which instinctively curls itself into a ball, conveys it to 

 the hole, which is exactly proportioned to the size of the victim. 

 Having deposited the caterpillar at the bottom, the wasp lays a 

 single egg in its body, and flies ofi' for another. This is repeated 

 until the hole is full, when, sealing up the entrance, she leaves the 

 living mass to be gradually devoured whilst still alive, each one by 

 its separate maggot. This proceeds until the worms arrive at the 

 stage of changing into chrysalises, when the vital cord is severed 

 and such life as the caterpillar possessed is extinguished. The 

 treatment of a fly by the spider is not humane, to say the least of 

 it. Having induced the fly to "walk into his parlour," the 

 spider, if not hungry at the moment, seizes and envelopes it in a 

 silken bag, from which, without the power of moving wing or leg, 

 the victim can watch, for days, the same process pursued with 

 relations and friends, until the time arrives to be relieved from 

 what, in an animal, would be intolerable misery, by the simple 

 process of being devoured alive. The hornet is not less hard upon 

 the fly. Having caught a blue-bottle, for instance, he simply 

 bites off the legs and wings, and then, packing up the trunk, still 

 instinct with life, carries it away to be eaten at leisure by the 

 workers in the nest. The ichneumon, again, lays her eggs in the 

 living body of a caterpillar, apparently without any objection, 

 expressed or implied, by the latter, who goes on eating the cabbage, 

 while the little worms, which are forthwith hatched from the eggs, 

 go on eating her own living body, which they do until there is 

 literally nothing left of the caterpillar excepting its skin, which 

 forms a receptacle for the cocoons of the devouring grubs. These 

 are only a few instances which might be adduced, but, in fact, 

 and I might have referred to it sooner, insects have not the 

 necessary organs for feeling. These I take to be "nerves" and 



