LONDON INSECTS 69 



almost everything in England in the known world, 

 indeed which we should be likely in common talk to 

 speak of as an insect, with the exception of Spiders 

 and Centipedes, and as Swift describes it 



' That curious creature men call a woodlouse,' 



(' Slate beast ' is its name in the Highlands), 



' Which rolls itself up in itself for a house,' 



one scarcely knows whether one ought to feel most 

 astonished at the wonderful likeness in unlikeness 

 running everywhere through Nature, which makes 

 such generalisations possible, or at the labour which 

 a conclusion of the kind represents. 



Why should every Butterfly, Beetle, Moth, Fly, or 

 Flea wherever found north, south, east, or west be 

 built up of just thirteen segments, and have just six 

 legs? And how many centuries of quiet work of 

 patient, observant men living and dying, many of 

 them, absorbed in the one favourite study has it 

 taken to find out with something like certainty that 

 such, improbable as it sounds, is the case ? 



To the second question all sorts of answers have 

 been given at different times, each seeming satisfactory 

 at the moment, but most of them to be written only 

 on sand and washed away by the rising tide of fuller 

 knowledge. 



There are at least three ways in which the six-legged 

 insects may be grouped. One natural division is 

 according to their manner of feeding some suck, 

 others chew or munch. 



