THE CHILD OF NIGHT. 101 
This fact the moderns have recognized,—the insect is an embryo. 
But who would suppose that this very circumstance would doom it to 
death? How rude a contradiction! An embryo launched into the thick 
of the fray, to be the victim of all—of birds, and even of insects. An 
embryo armed, it is true; and nothing is stranger than to see the soft 
grubs brandishing their threatening jaws, while their feeble body, 
deprived of all defence, is exposed on every side. 
Flight offers them but few chances; their best protection is night. 
And therefore they shun the light,—they live as they can under the 
ground, in the wood, or at least beneath the leaf. If this be true of the 
larvee, the grubs, of what we call worms, we may say the same of the 
insect. For its first period (that of the larva) endures a considerable 
time, though its life as a nymph, and finally its third period, last but a 
very brief while. Numerous species (May-bugs, stag-beetles, and the 
like) have three to six years of a tenebrous existence, and only three 
months under the sun. 
Even the insects which live longest in the sun, like the bees and the 
ants, work willingly in obscurity; are partial to the shadows of their 
hives and ant-hills. 
We may assert as a general rule that the insect is the child of night. 
Most insects shun the day. But how can they avoid the air? 
Even in hot countries, the contact of the variable atmosphere with a 
live nude body, whose epidermis is not yet hardened, becomes infinitely 
painful. In our severe climates, each breath of air must produce the 
sensation of piercing arrows, of a million of fine needles. What would 
it be, O Heaven, for a poor human foetus to issue, after a week or a 
fortnight, from its mother’s womb, and instead of peacefully under- 
going the transformations which strengthen it, to be subjected to them 
in a naked condition and in open day? What would be its sensations on 
quitting its soft asylum, and falling into the cold air? Yet such must 
be those of the insect, when, soft, feeble, assailable, and penetrable 
everywhere, still almost floating and gelatinous to the eye, it ex- 
periences the cold, and the wind, and the shock of so many painful 
accidents. 
Certain clothed species are a little better protected. Some are 
7B 
