IN REPUBLICS. 351 
matter, that insect dwells on the body of 
another animal; these have but an ephe- 
meral existence, those pass their life in 
idleness, flitting by thousands from flower 
to flower, without being conscious either 
of an habitation or a single relation, 
Shall we compare to insects, organisedina 
republic, those processionary caterpillars, 
whose sole talent consists in their know-- 
ing how to spin, in common, a web,- 
in which they undergo their transform. 
ation, and in their leaving behind them in 
their march, threads which serve to guide 
their companions, or those swarms of 
crane-flies, collected in the air, by the sole 
attraction of the sexes, or those myriads 
of ephemere, which have but one day, 
one hour, to quit the waters, congregate, 
and die? Or shall we place in the same 
rank those clouds of locusts, without 
laws, without police, whose assembling 
appears to have no other object than the 
devastation of the countries they traverse, 
and those regular societies that know 
how to establish a common abode, adapt- 
