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scribed than in our cooler clime; and can we imagine 

 that it was not in obedience to this decree, that larger 

 and more active scavengers were framed ? The gaudy 

 wings that float idly on the breeze, and the coats of mail 

 which glitter in the light, have they nothing to tell of 

 the local circumstances around them ; or, is it too much 

 to infer, that a more glorious and stimulating sun re- 

 quired creatures of superior brilliancy to bask in its 

 rays ? A moderate degree of heat, and that only during 

 a certain portion of the year, may suffice in quiescent 

 regions to keep up the equilibrium of the organic world, 

 the various members of which, whether animals or 

 plants, are ensured, in such countries, their alternate 

 seasons of activity and rest ; but within the tropics, life, 

 in all its aspects, is ever vigorous; and, though the 

 several species may have their appointed times of partial 

 repose, there is no such thing as tranquillity for the 

 mass. Hence it is, that to meet the requirements of a 

 Flora * such as there obtains, a less magnificent Fauna 

 would have been inadequate ; and we cannot but recog- 

 nize, that, in the wonderful and almost endless modifica- 

 tions of the insect tribes which people those zones, a 

 special provision has been made to check the overgrowth 

 of other created things. 



* The great preponderance of the phytophagous over the pre- 

 dacious tribes, in the hotter regions of the earth, is a remarkable 

 fact, and strongly suggestive of the relation which the insect and 

 vegetable worlds (both of which attain their maximum in those 

 zones) bear to each other. " The carnivorous beetles, or Carabidte," 

 says Mr. Darwin, " appear in extremely few numbers within the 



