52 VERMES. 



to a great part of the creation, summons an host of the animal world into 

 special notice, represented both in sacred and profane writings as utterly 

 worthless, to be regarded with abhorrence, and fit to be destroyed with- 

 out mercy. 



Mankind, the willing instruments of prejudice, and yielding to their 

 destructive propensities, have avoided the investigation of many interest- 

 ing phenomena of living nature, and have failed in the precepts of reason, 

 as well as the moral principle of humanity, to inculcate the duty of pre- 

 serving life. 



Have they heedlessly forgotten the will of the Divine Author, who 

 saw it good that they should be ? 



Opposed by discouragement so great, less surprise must be excited, 

 when it appears that this ample division of the animal world has been 

 neglected, and even despised. Few, indeed, cared for such beings, unless 

 those who were superior to vulgar prejudices, or who, by penetrating a 

 little farther into the history of some of these curious subjects, found 

 inexhaustible sources of admiration. 



The mysterious origin and abode of worms in the human body, and 

 in that of various animals, and their generation amidst decay and putres- 

 cence, augmented the aversion entertained against them. Nor had the 

 lights of science, until later eras, divulged the metamorphosis which many 

 such loathsome creatures were destined to exhibit, as they passed into 

 beautiful insects, decked in the gayest colours. 



Every modern naturalist is disposed to admit how little this parti- 

 cular field has been cultivated not from being unworthy of cultivation, 

 but from being difficult, obscure, and neglected, insomuch, that scarcely 

 more is known than some of the Linnaean genera, and those proving 

 noxious to the human frame. In all attempts at delineation, also, they 

 are commonly exhibited after the rudest fashion, with a few exceptions, 

 from the labours of the more accomplished authors. 



Let us reflect, however, on the obscurity of their abode, on their 

 variable form, on their liability to perish, whereby even simple expo- 

 sure to the light is often destructive. 



The absence of prominent parts renders it difficult to impose the 



