348 ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES. 
NOTE 4.—Book i., Chap. iv. 
and, in fact, 
(Love and Death.) On the Female Apparatus.—Réaumur, 
every writer,—has admired the manner in which the weapons of war become 
the instruments of maternal love. M. Lacase, in a very beautiful thesis, the 
result of independent observations, and a continuation of the analogous works 
of an eminent master, Léon Dufour, has treated this subject with great 
anatomical preciseness. An original and important point of his labour is, 
undoubtedly, his demonstration, conformably to the views of Geoffroy Saint- 
Hilaire, Serres, Audouin, and others, “that the very various armours which 
prolong the abdomen imply the modification, or even the sacrifice, of one or 
two of its posterior rings.” Thus Nature apparently operates upon a fixed 
amount of substance, only increasing one part at the expense of others, which 
are shortened or transformed. 
NOTE 5.—Book i., Chap. v. 
The Chilly Offspring of the Insect.— But,” the reader will exclaim, “ what 
labour ! How terrible a law of continuous efforts to be imposed on young beings, 
as yet but ill provided with tools, and without that superb arsenal of imple- 
ments which at a later stage we admire in the insect. How protracted are 
the means devised for their defence, which would be much sooner accomplished 
