Articulates. 



active scavengers of the ocean. The\ 

 dom and skill indeed in the perfect jc 

 arrangements of the shelly armor with which* 

 are clothed ; but we recognise a higher purpose and 

 more comprehensive relation in the work they were 

 appointed to accomplish the purification of the 

 ters by the swift destruction of all decaying ani- 

 mal substances found in them. They have been 

 aptly called the insects of the ocean. 



Among the insects proper we have another 

 exhaustfesa list of special adaptation* l->ut one who 

 had never studied their structure or instincts for a 

 single day, could not fail to recognise their general 

 adaptation to the world. It is thrust constantly 

 upon the attention of the most careless observer. 

 He may not know how the thing is done, but he 

 cannot fail to see that it is done. Thousands of 

 different kinds swarm around him ; some making day, 

 and others night, the time of their activity. He may 

 regard many of them as pests, but the very fact 

 that they defy all his schemes for their destruction, 

 shows that they are provided for by nature ; and 

 so provided for, that the combined efforts of all 

 the men in the world could not extirpate a single 

 insect spec; Some live in water, some on 



land ; some fly by day, some by night, and some 

 never fly at all. Some feed upon the honey of 

 flowers, some upon the vilest refuse of the sham- 

 bles ; some upon living plants, others only upon 

 dead, woody fibre. More than a hundred thousand 

 different kinds are known. In this vast multitude 



