RE —— el CUO rl 
“ Insect Life.” 289 
bodies, what shall we say of integuments, which not only do not 
wince under the poisoned barbs of thistles and stinging nettles, 
but which in many instances carry within them and are full of 
liquids so caustic, that we employ them for the vesication of our 
own skins? and though the induction is but partial, the objection 
will apply universally ; for who would dream of granting to one 
insect what he denied to another ? 
“Tt is the more important to attend to this, because many esteemed 
writers on Entomology,— though forced by the conduct of an in- 
sect when injured, to admit that he shows small evidence of general 
sensibility,—have yet, when their subject brings them to speak of 
touch in the abstract, made it the great instrument by which the 
wonders of insect architecture are accomplished. ‘Thus, although 
unable from what they see to impute much general sensibility to 
the spider, they yet assert that the delicacy of his touch is dis- 
played beyond the possibility of doubt; and that the fact of his 
working his nets with his hind legs, and in the dark, indicates 
that this sense, being the only one which he can turn to account, 
possesses an additional portion of accuracy in compensation for 
the help which it would otherwise have derived from the sense 
of sight. Now this is certainly an inconsistency; but the after 
assumption which is resorted to for a particular end does not 
invalidate the previous admission. Whoever contents himself 
with simply recording what he sees, and does not go out of his 
way to suppose a power of which there is no evidence, (!!) in 
order to explain, and that very inadequately, the marvellous works 
of bees and spiders, will admit, that as insects give very equivocal 
signs of any diffused sensibility, their possession of the sense of 
touch must be proportionably obscure ; while the exquisite degree 
of it which has been pretended, must be seen to be utterly un- 
founded. And yet this is the favourite sense with Entomologists, 
and the one to which they refer almost all the operations of insects; 
—by touch alone, by the mere crossing of the antenne, ants are 
said to deliver themselves of matters arising in the conduct of their 
affairs, to record which whole sentences are required; while the 
tactus eruditissimus of bees discerns the presence and applauds the 
mandates of their queen. ‘To what purpose is all this waste of 
stippositions ? The geometrical figure of the web or the cell, the 
activity of the makers of them, sustained until the completion of 
their task,—all in the wonder that is most wonderful, remains as 
unexplained as ever!” 
But if the sense of touch has no share in producing the mar- 
VOL, Iv. U 
