LETTER XL 



ON THE AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR 

 THEIR YOUNG. 



Amongst the larger animals, every observer of nature 

 has witnessed, with admiration, that love of their off- 

 spring which the beneficent Creator, with equal regard 

 to the happiness of the parent and the progeny, has in- 

 terwoven in the constitution of his creatures. Who 

 that has any sensibility, has not felt his heart dilate with 

 gratitude to the giver of all good, in observing amongst 

 the domestic animals which surround him, the effects 

 of this divine slorge, so fruitful of the most delightful 

 sensations ? Who that is not a stock or a stone has read 

 unmoved the anecdote recorded in books of Natural 

 History, of the poor bitch, which in the agonies of a 

 cruel dissection licked with parental fondness her new- 

 born offspring; or the affecting account of the she-bear 

 related in Phipps's Voyage to the North Pole, which, 

 herself severely wounded by the same shot that killed 

 her cubs, spent her last moments in tearing and laying 

 before them the food she had collected, and died lick- 

 ing their wounds ? 



These feelings you must have experienced, but it has 

 scarcely occurred to you that you would have any room 

 for exercising them in your new pursuit. You have 

 not, I dare say, suspected that any similar example 

 could have been adduced amougst insects, to which at 



