INSECT FORETHOUGHT. 415 



only to find themselves in a desert, without 

 food, or hope of reaching any, and would soon 

 perish. Need we say how it can be easily 

 accounted for? Surely, only, because it is God 

 who has instructed these humble creatures, en- 

 duing them, if not actually with the powers of 

 foresight, at any rate with the instinct which 

 impels them to proceed in such a manner as if 

 they were thus endowed. By a most wonderful 

 exercise of wisdom He has taught them to distin- 

 guish even between the different species of plants ; 

 and rarely, indeed, do we find that the insect com- 

 mits a mistake, or selects a wrong or fatal birth- 

 place for its young. 



Insect history is full of such instances of the 

 great Creator's wisdom and love. Although they 

 are not rendered conspicuous to every eye, they 

 are not the less real, nor the less amazing. In 

 our Life of an Insect, many have been the occa- 

 sions when we have stopped to wonder afresh at 

 continually new and more striking indications of 

 His adorable goodness and power, as the different 

 phenomena of insect-life have been paraded before 

 us. Yet this is but a very minute portion of what 

 really exists of the admirable and beautiful in the 



