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‘most direct damage, are indeed, though indirectly, among his best benefactors. 
Apart from direct benefit or injury to man, the whole of the insect tribes are 
working towards one purpose, namely, the gradual development of the earth and 
‘its resources. The greater number are perpetually destroying that which is effete, 
in order to make way for something better ; while others, whose business seems 
chiefly to be the killing and eating of their fellow-insects, act as a check to their 
‘inordinate increase, and so guard against the danger of their exceeding their 
proper mission.” 
I will borrow from the same author two more illustrations of the fact that 
-even those insects which we consider most noxious are, in certain important 
respects, good friends. What more annoying creature can the mind conceive 
than the common mosquito? Truly is Beelzebub (“ King of the Flies”) rightly 
named if these are types of his subjects. I need hardly remind you of the tor- 
tures we all endured at our first excursion; it must be remembered, however, that 
devouring field-naturalists is not the normal occupation of mosquitoes ; their real 
object is a beneficent one. In the deep dark forests of the tropics the air would 
be perfectly stagnant, and an enormous development of noisome fevers would be 
the consequence, if it were not for the motion caused by the wings of these and 
myriads of other minute creatures. In the larval state, too, they live in water, 
and feed upon the particles of decaying matter which are too small to be noticed 
by the larger aquatic animals. Were it not for the presence of these insects, 
which swarm in vast armies ia all stagnant water in warm climates, thus purifying it 
as wellas the atmosphere, such localities would be uninhabitable by any animals 
higher than reptiles. Again, strange as it may appear at first sight,if it were not for 
the existence of the many borersand wood-eating insects we could have none of those 
lovely forests which give so much beauty to our landscapes; and are the source of 
so much wealth to the country. Let us imagine that all these insects have been 
destroyed at one fell swoop, and note the consequence. A giant of the forest dies, 
and in course of time, during some winter storm, is blown down. Where it falls 
there it lies, and nothing can grow from the space it covers. Time rolls on and 
tree after tree falls, until the whole ground is covered with the trunks and limbs 
of fallen trees, and what was once a stately forest, with all its wealth of life, isnow 
a vast wilderness where nothing can grow. How different is the beneficent 
operation of nature under the present conditions ; scarcely has a tree shown 
signs of declining vigor than the insect hosts are at work. First of all come certain 
species which pick out any weak point and deposit their eggs there. The larve 
in due time hatch, and, eating into the tree, accelerate its decay. When it dies 
and falls tc the ground it is immediately pounced upon by the large wood-boring 
beetles, which deposit their eggs upon the bark. These hatch into grubs armed 
with strong jaws with which they soon bore into and through the trunk, thus 
rendering it permeable to air and moisture. Smaller beetles and other insects 
follow in the wake of the larger, and bore out the softened decaying wood, some 
a ee ee ee 
