254? INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 



The insects which are indirectly beneficial to us, may 

 be considered under three points of view : First, as re- 

 moving various nuisances and deformities from the face 



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of nature: Secondly, as destroying other insects, that but 

 for their agency would multiply so as greatly to injure 

 and annoy us : and Thirdly, as supplying food to useful 

 animals, particularly to fish and birds. 



To advert in thejirst place to the former. All sub- 

 stances must be regarded as nuisances and deformities, 

 when considered with relation to the whole, which are 

 deprived of the principle of animation. In this relation 

 stand a dead carcase, a dead tree, or a mass of excre- 

 ment, which are clearly incumbrances that it is desirable 

 to have removed ; and the office of effecting this removal 

 is chiefly assigned to insects, which have been justly 

 called the great scavengers of nature. Let us consider 

 their little but effective operations in each of their voca- 

 tions. 



How disgusting to the eye, how offensive to the smell, 

 would be the whole face of nature, were the vast quantity 

 of excrement daily falling to the earth from the various 

 animals which inhabit it, suffered to remain until gra- 

 dually dissolved by the rain or decomposed by the ele- 

 ments ! That it does not thus offend us, we are indebted 

 to an inconceivable host of insects which attack it the 

 moment it falls ; some immediately beginning to devour 

 it, others depositing in it eggs from which are soon hatch- 

 ed larvae that concur in the same office with tenfold vo- 

 racity : and thus every particle of dung, at least of the 

 most offensive kinds, speedily swarms with inhabitants 

 which consume all the liquid and noisome particles, leav- 

 ing nothing but the undigested remains, that soon dry 



