NATURAL HISTORY OF PLINY. 



EOOK XI. 



THE VARIOUS KINDS OF INSECTS. 



CHAP. 1. (1.) THE EXTREME SMALLXESS OF INSECTS. 



\V E shall now proceed to a description of the insects, a 

 subject replete with endless difficulties j 1 for, in fact, there 

 are some authors who have maintained that they do not respire, 

 and that they are destitute of blood. The insects are numerous, 

 and form many species, and their mode of life is like that of 

 the terrestrial animals and the birds. Some of them are fur- 

 nished with wings, bees for instance ; others are divided into 

 those kinds which have wings, and those which are without 

 them, such as ants ; while others, again, are destitute of both 

 wings and feet. All these animals have been very properly 

 called " insects," 2 from the incisures or divisions which sepa- 

 rate the body, sometimes at the neck, and sometimes at the 

 corselet, and so divide it into members or segments, only 

 united to each other by a slender tube. In some insects, how- 

 ever, this division is not complete, as it is surrounded by 

 wrinkled folds ; and thus the flexible vertebra) of the creature, 

 whether situate at the abdomen, or whether only at the upper 

 part of the body, are protected by layers, overlapping each 

 other ; indeed, in no one of her works has Nature more fully 

 displayed her exhaustless ingenuity. 



(2.) In large animals, on the other hand, or, at all events, 



1 " Immensae subtilitatis." As Cuvier remarks, the ancients have com- 

 mitted more errors in reference to the insects, than to any other portion of 

 the animal world. The discovery of the microscope has served more than 

 anything to correct these erroneous notions. 



2 " Insecta," "articulated." 



VOL. III. B 



