STUDY I. 



digs about it's roots; the fmall worm, which con- 

 trives to live in the parenchyme, that is, in the mere 

 thicknefs of a leaf; the wafp and honey-bee, which 

 hum around the bloflbms ; the gnat, which fucks 

 the juices of the flem ; the ant, which licks up the 

 gnat ; and, to make no longer an enumeratioo, 

 the fpider, which, in order to find a prey in thefe, 

 one after another, diftends his fnares over the 

 whole vicinity. 



However minute thefe objefts may be, they, 

 furely, merited my attention, as Nature deemed 

 them not unworthy of her's. Could 1 refufe them 

 a place in my general Hiftory, when (he had given 

 them one in the fyftem of the Univerfe ? For a ftill 

 ftronger reafon, had I written the hiftory of my 

 ftrawberry plant, 1 muft have given fome account 

 of the infedts attached to it. Plants are the habi- 

 tation of infeds ; and it is impofiible to give the 

 hiftory of a city, without faying fomething of it's 

 inhabitants. 



Befides, my ftrawberry plant was not in its na- 

 tural fituation, in the open country, on the border 

 of a wood, or by the brink of a rivulet, where it 

 could have been frequented by many other fpecies 

 of living creatures. It was confined to an earthen 

 pot, amidft the fmoke of Paris. T obferved it only 

 at vacant moments. I knew nothing of the infeds 



B 2 which 



