xx INTRODUCTORY DISCOURSE OF THE 



dissolving substances which it touches or mixes with ; and it varies in different classes of animals. In one 

 particular it is the same in all animals j it will nut attack living matter, but only dead; tiie consequence of 

 which it, that its powers of eating away and dissolving are perfectly safe to the animals themselves, in whose 

 stomachs it remains without over hurling them. This juice differs in different animals, according to the 

 food on which they subsist ; thus, in birds of prey, ;is kites, hawks, owls, it only acts upon animal matter, 

 and does not dissolve vegetables. In other birds, and iu all animals feeding on plants, as oxen, sheep, 

 hares, it dissolves vegetable matter, as grass, but will not touch flesh of any kind. This has been asivrtainod 

 by making them swallow balls with meat in them, and several holes drilled through to let the gastric juice 

 reach the meat: no effect was produced upou it. We may further observe, that there is a most curious and 

 beautiful correspondence between this juice iu the stomach of different animals and the other [tarts of their 

 bodies, connected with the important operations of eating and digesting their food. The use of the juice is 

 plainly to convert what they eat into a fluid, from which, by various other pr all their parts, blood, 



bones, muscles, <fcc., are afterwards formed. But the food is first of all to be obtained, and then prepared 

 by bruising, for the action of the juice. Now birds of prey have instruments, their claws and beaks, for 

 tearing and devouring their food (that is, animals of various kinds), but those instruments are useless 

 for picking up and crushing seeds; accordingly, they have a gastric juice which dissolves the animals they 

 eat; while birds, which have only a beak fit for pecking, and eating seeds, have a juice that dissolves seed.., 

 and not flesh. Nay more, it is found that the eeeds must be bruised before the juice will dissolve them : 

 this you find by trying the experiment in a vessel with the juice; and accordingly the birds have a gizzard, 

 and animals which graze have flat teeth, which grind and bruise their food, before the gastric juice is to act 

 upon it. 



"We have seen how wonderfully the Hte works, according to rules discovered by man thousands of years 

 after the insect had been following them with perfect accuracy. The same little animal seems to be 

 1 acquainted with principles of which we are still ignorant. We can, by crossing, vary the forms of cattle with 

 astonishing nicety ; but we have no means of altering the nature of an animal once born, by means of 

 treatment and feeding. This power, however, is undeniably possessed by the bees. When the queen bee 

 is lost by death or otherwise, they choose a grub from among those which are born for workers ; they mako 

 three cells into one, and placing the grub there, they build a tube round it ; they afterwards build another 

 cell of a pyramidal form, into which the grub grows ; they feed it with peculiar food, and tend it with extreme 

 care. It becomes, when transformed from the worm to the fly, not a worker, but a queen bee. 



These singular insects resemble our own species in one of our worst propensities, the disposition to war ; 

 but their attention to their sovereign is equally extraordinary, though of a somewhat capricious kind. In 

 a few hours after their queen is lost, the whole hive is in a state of confusion. A singular humming is 

 heard, and the bees are seen moving all over the surface of the combs with great rapidity. The uews spreads 

 quickly, and when the queen is restored, quiet immediately succeeds. But if another queen be put upon 

 them, they instantly discover the trick, and, surrounding her, they either suffocate or starve her to death. 

 This happens if the false queen be introduced within a few hours after the first is lost or removed ; but if 

 twenty-four hours have elapsed, they will receive any queen, and obey her. 



The labours and the policy of the Ants are, when closely examined, still more wonderful, perhaps, than 

 those of the Bees. Their nest is a city consisting of dwelling-places, halls, streets, and squares into which 

 the streets open. The food they principally like is the honey which conies from another insect found in their 

 neighbourhood, and which they, generally speaking, bring home from day to day as they want it. Late dis- 

 coveries have shown that they do not eat grain, but live almost entirely on animal lood and this honey. 

 Some kinds of ants have the foresight to bring home the insects on whose honey they feed, and keep them 

 in particular cells, where they guard them to prevent their escaping, and feed them with proper vegetable 

 matter, which they do not eat themselves. Nay, they obtain the eggs of those insects, and superintend 

 their hatching, and then rear the young insect until it becomes capable of supplying the desired honey. 

 They sometimes remove them to the strongest parts of their nest, whero there are cells apparently fortified 

 for protecting them from invasion. In those cells the insects are kept to supply the wants of the whole ants 

 which compose the population of the city. It is a most singular circumstance in the economy of nature, that 

 the degree of cold at which the ant becomes torpid is also that at which this insect falls into the same state. 

 It is considerably below the freezing-point; so that they require food the greater part of the winter, and if 

 the insects on which they depend for food were not kept alive during the cold in which the ants can move 

 about, the latter would be without the means of subsistence. 



How trifling soever this little animal may appear in our climate, there are few more formidable creatures 

 than the ant of some tropical countries. A traveller, who once filled a high station in the French govern- 

 ment, Mr. Malouet, has described one of their cities, and, were not the account confirmed by various 

 testimonies, it might seem exaggerated, lie observed at a great distance what seemed a lofty structure, and 

 was informed by his guide that it consisted of an ant-hill, which could not be approached without danger of 

 being devoured. Iu height was from fifteen to twenty fret, and its bast.- thirty or forty feet square. Its 

 sides inclined, like the lower part of a pyramid, the point being cut oil'. Ho was informed that it became 



