OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 07 



must be reoarded as nearer the truth. Not to mention 

 the peculiar organization of insects, which strongly 

 favours the idea I am inculcating, but which will be 

 considered more properly in another place, tlieir sang 

 froid upon the loss of their limbs, even those that we 

 account most* necessary to life, irrefragably proves that 

 the pain they suffer cannot be very acute. Had a giant 

 lost an arm or a leg, or were a sword or spear run 

 through his body, he would feel no great inclination 

 for running about, dancing, or eating. Yet a Tipula will 

 leave half its legs in the hands of an unlucky boy who 

 has endeavoured to catch it, and will fly here and 

 there with as much agility and unconcern as if nothing 

 had happened to it : and an insect impaled upon a pin 

 w ill oflen devour its prey with as much avidity as wheii 

 at liberty. Were a giant eviscerated, his body divided 

 in the middle, or his head cut off, it would be all over 

 with him ; he would move no more ; he would be dead 

 to the calls of hunger : or the emotions of fear, anger, 

 or love. Not so our insects. I have seen the com- 

 mon cockchafer walk about with apparent indifference 

 after some bird had nearly emptied its body of its vis- 

 cera ; a humble bee will eat honey with greediness 

 though deprived of its abdomen ; and I myself lately 

 saw an ant, which had been brought out of the nest by 

 its comrades, walk when deprived of its head. The 

 head of a wasp will attempt to bite after it is separated 

 from the rest of the body ; and the abdomen under si- 

 milar circumstances, if the finger be moved to it, will 

 attempt to sting. And what is more extraordinary, 

 the headless trunk of a male Mantis has been, known to 



