ORDER II. BUGS. 85 



duction, or in its uses — ay, and more so in tlie injuries it 

 is capable of doing ! It sometimes seems as if the meanest 

 and most trivial of earth's creatures were created for the 

 express purpose of working out the vastest amount of evil ! 

 as if there was nothing else to distinguish them or make 

 them deserving of notice! And when Godlike Man, the 

 highest link in the animal creation, the last step between 

 the creature and the Creator, when such as he attempts to 

 procure renown by the vast amount of injury he can inflict ; 

 when, undistinguished from his fellows save by the halo of 

 destruction that surrounds him, he mounts the throne of 

 human glory by " making countless millions mourn" — and 

 not a few have clothed themselves with such unenviable 

 immortality! — why should it not be so with the meanest 

 insects ? Independent of its curious construction, why 

 should not the subtle manner in which it works a vast 

 amount of injury prevent even the vile Shield-louse from be- 

 ing passed by unnoticed among those of its order? Let the 

 vain man who would imitate it think of the base level to 

 which he must stoop, and from this insignificant animal 

 learn one of the lessons Nature is every where teaching ! 



Probably hundreds have passed through their orchards, 

 day after day, without noticing this insect, although myri- 

 ads have been in sight. Many well-educated farmers have 

 seen their peach-trees covered with brownish warts, and 

 have suffered them to wither and die, without dreaming that 

 these warts were live animals, sucking the sap, the life- 

 blood of the tree; and yet these motionless excrescences 

 have laid waste whole orchards, have devastated the fairest 

 of bushes and the most fruitful of trees, and in place of fra- 

 grance and verdure have left naught but desolation and de- 

 cay. They are essentially noxious insects, which, if unmo- 

 lested, multiply immensely, and hence should be carefully 

 sought upon the branches of our trees, and, as often as they 

 make their appearance, destroyed at the point of the knife. 



