OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 39 



son he adduced to prove that a\ lien rats and mice be- 

 come troublesome to us, we ought not to have recourse 

 to dog"^, ferrets, and cats to exterminate them. When 

 any species multiplies upon us, so as to become nox- 

 ious, we certainly have a just right to destroy it, and 

 what means can be more proper than those which Pro-r 

 vidence itself has furnished ? AVe can none of us go 

 further or do more than the Divine AVill permits; and 

 he will take care that our efforts shall not be injurious 

 to the general welfare, or effect the annihilation of any 

 individual species. 



Again, with regard to insects that are employed in 

 medicine or the arts, if the apothecary cannot distin- 

 guish a Lytta from a Carabus or Cetonia, both of u liich 

 I have tbund mixed with the former, how can he know 

 whether his druggist furnishes him with a good or bad 

 article? And the same observation may with still greater 

 force apply to the dyer in his purchase of cochineal, 

 since it is still more difficult to distinguish the ^ild 

 sort from the cultivated. Theie are, it is probable, 

 many insects that might be employed with advantage 

 in both these departments : but unless Entomology be 

 inore generally studied by scientific men, who are the 

 only persons likely to make discoveries of this kind, 

 than it has hitherto been, we must not hope to derive 

 further profit from them. It seems more particularly 

 incumbent upon the professors of the divine art of 

 licaling to become conversant with this as well as the 

 other branches of Natural History : for not only do 

 they derive some of their most useful drugs from in- 

 sects, but many also of the diseases upon which they 

 are consulted, as we shall see hereafter, are occasion- 



