14 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



practising their various arts, pursuing their amours, 

 and preparing- habitations for their progeny: you must 

 notice the laying and kind of their eggs, their wonder- 

 ful metamorphoses; their instincts, whether they be 

 solitary or gregarious, and the other miracles of their 

 hisi'ory — all of which will open to you a richer mine of 

 amusement and instruction, 1 speak it vvithout hesita- 

 tion, than any other department of Natural History can 

 furnish. A minute enumeration of these particulars 

 would be here misplaced, and only forestall what will 

 be detailed more at large hereafter; but a rapid glance 

 at a very few of the most remarkable of them, may serve 

 as a stimulus to excite your curiosity, and induce you 

 to enter with greater eagerness into the wide field to 

 which I shall conduct you. 



The lord of the creation plumes himself upon his 

 powers of invention, and is proud to enumerate the vari- 

 ous useful arts and machines to which they have given 

 birth, not aware that " He who teacheth man know- 

 ledge" has instructed these despised insects to anticipate 

 him in many of them. The builders of Babel doubtless 

 thought their invention of turning earth into artificial 

 stone, a very happy discovery "*; yet a little bee'' had 

 practised this art, using indeed a different process, on a 

 small scale, and the white ants on a large one, ever 

 since the world began. Man thinks that he stands un- 

 rivalled as an architect, and that his buildings ai-e with- 

 out a parallel among the works of the inferior orders 

 of animals. He would be of a different opinion did 

 he attend to the history of insects : he would find that 



" Geii. xi. 3. " Mc^achilc muraria, Latr. 



