82 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



led to the work of destruction : where he directs them 

 they lay waste the earth, and famine and the pestilence 

 often follow in their train. 



The generality of mankind overlook or disregard 

 these powerful, because minute, dispensers of punish- 

 ment; seldom considering" in how many ways their 

 welfare is affected by them : but the fact is certain, that 

 should it please God to give them a general commis- 

 sion against us, and should he excite them to attack, at 

 the same time, our bodies, our clothing, our houses, 

 our cattle, and the produce of our fields and gardens, 

 we should soon be reduced, in every possible respect, 

 to a state of extreme wretchedness ; the prey of the 

 most filthy and disgusting diseases, divested of a co- 

 vering, unsheltered, except by caves and dungeons, 

 from the inclemency of the seasons, exposed to all the 

 extremities of want and famine, and in the end, as Sir 

 Joseph Banks, speaking on this subject, has Avell ob- 

 served'^, driven with all the larger animals from the 

 face of the earth. You may smile, perhaps, and think 

 this a high-coloured picture, but you will recollect — I 

 am not stating the mischiefs that insects commonly do, 

 but what they would do according to all probability, if 

 certain counter-checks restraining them within due li- 

 mits had not been put in action ; and which they actu- 

 ally do, as you will see, in particular cases, when those 

 counterchecks are diminished or removed. 



Insects may be said, without hyperbole, to hav e es- 

 tablished a kind of universal empire over the earth 

 and its inhabitants. This is principally conspicuous in 

 the injuries which they occasion, for nothing in nature 



* On the Blight in Corn, [). 9. 



