LONDON INSECTS 111 



bad, or indifferent (some five or six times as many, 

 according to Mr. Bosworth Smith's estimate, as the 

 entire population of the British Isles), what the year 

 of our Lord is to Christendom. Then there would 

 have been no Mahometan invasion to give Charles 

 Martel the opportunity to put his mark on his century, 

 and clear the way for Charlemagne to found the second 

 Western Empire. 



When Mahomet's Spider shook himself that morn- 

 ing and thought he would try to catch a fly for his 

 breakfast, he turned the entire course of mediaeval and 

 modern history, smashed the great Persian Empire, 

 burned the library of Alexandria, and, among other 

 things but we are following him on to dangerous 

 ground, and had better stop before quite over head and 

 ears, laid the first stone of the fabric of the temporal 

 power of the popes. The chain of cause and effect all 

 through is unbroken, and is spun with the Spider's 

 thread. 



It is an aid to faith to know that the little creatures 

 which worked such miracles are not mere insects, but 

 form, with Scorpions and some other smaller things 

 (including Cheese Mites), a distinct class, which is by 

 common consent placed above the true Insects. 



The reasons for the higher place given to these 

 bloodthirsty little creatures are that, both in head and 

 breathing contrivances, they are more fully developed, 

 and that, unlike most insects which are born in a 

 shape quite unlike their fathers and mothers, and only 

 reach the perfect form after a series of metamorphoses, 



