184 OF INSECTS. 



Also, many or most of the beetle species lodge in holes in 

 the earth, environed by hard, rough substances, and have fre- 

 quently to squeeze their way through narrow passages ; in 

 which situation, wings so tender, and so large, could 

 scarcely have escaped injury, without both a firm covering 

 to defend them, and the capacity of collecting themselves 

 up under its protection. 



II. Another contrivance, equally mechanical, and equal- 

 ly clear, is the awl or borer, fixed at the tails of various 

 species of flies ; and with which they pierce, in some 

 cases, plants ; in others, wood : in others, the skin and 

 flesh of animals ; in others, the coat of the chrysalis of in- 

 sects of a different species from their own; and in others, 

 even lime, mortar and stone. I need not add, that hav- 

 ing pierced the substance, they deposit their eggs in the 

 hole. The descriptions, which naturalists give of this or- 

 gan, are such as the following : — It is a sharp-pointed 

 instrument, which, in its inactive state, lies concealed in 

 the extremity of the abdomen, and which the animal draws 

 out at pleasure, for the purpose of making a puncture in 

 the leaves, stem or bark of the particular plant, which is 

 suited to the nourishment of its young. In a sheath, 

 which divides and opens whenever the organ is used, there 

 is enclosed, a compact, solid, dentated stem, along which 

 runs a gutter or groove, by which groove, after the pene- 

 tration is effected, the egg, assisted in some cases by a 

 peristaltic motion, passes to its destined lodgment. In the 

 oestrum or gad-fly, the wimble draws out like the pieces of 

 a spy-glass ; the last piece is armed with three hooks, and 

 is able to bore through the hide of an ox. Can any thing 

 more be necessary to display the mechanism, than to re- 

 late the fact? (PI. XXXII. fig. 3, 4.) 



III. The stings of insects, though for a different pur- 

 pose, are, in their structure, not unlike the piercer. The 

 sharpness to which the point in all of them is wrought ; 

 the temper and firmness of the substance of which it is 

 composed ; the strength of the muscles by which it is 

 darted out, compared with the small ness and weakness of 

 the insect, and with the soft and friable texture of the rest 

 of the body; are properties of the sting to be noticed, and 

 not a little to be admired. The sting of a bee will pierce 

 through a goatskin glove. It penetrates the human skin 

 more readily than the finest point of a needle. The action 

 of the sting aflfords an example of the union of chemistry 

 and mechanism, such as, if it be not a proof of contrivance, 



