16 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



commonest insects has known how to make and apply it 

 to its purposes*; and even pasteboard, superior in sub- 

 stance and polish to any we can produce, is manufac- 

 tured by another 5 . We imagine that nothing short of 

 human intellect can be equal to the construction of a 

 diving-bell or an air-pump yet a spider is in the daily 

 habit of using the one, and, what is more, one exactly 

 similar in principle to ours> but more ingeniously con- 

 trived ; by means of which she resides imwetted in the 

 bosom of the water, and procures the necessary supplies 

 of air by a much more simple process than our alterna- 

 ting buckets c and the caterpillar of a little moth knows 

 how to imitate the other, producing a vacuum, when 

 necessary for its purposes, without any piston besides its 

 own body d . If we think with wonder of the populous 

 cities which have employed the united labours of man 

 for many ages to bring them to their full extent, what 

 shall we say to the white ants, which require only a few 

 months to build a metropolis capable of containing an 

 infinitely greater number of inhabitants than even im- 

 perial Nineveh, Babylon, Rome, or Pekin, in all their 

 glory? 



That insects should thus have forestalled us in our 

 inventions, ought to urge us to pay a closer attention to 

 them and their ways than we have hitherto done, since 

 it is not at all improbable that the result would be many 

 useful hints for the improvement of our arts and manu- 

 factures, and perhaps for some beneficial discoveries. 

 The painter might thus probably be furnished with more 

 brilliant pigments, the dyer with more delicate tints, and 



a The common wasp. b Polistes nidulans. 



c Argyronetn nquatica. A Tinea serrate/la, L. 



