50 



fields would no longer be despoiled of their best pro- 

 ductions. The animals that assist in keeping the 

 insect tribes in check, deserve and should receive 

 protection, and may well be permitted to glean from 

 our abundant harvests their scanty remuneration. 



When their merits are better understood, we shall 

 be in no danger of mistaking our friends, of the insect 

 race, for the foes whose ravages we deplore. Of 

 insects that are indirectly beneficial to us, may be 

 mentioned those that remove animal and vegetable 

 nuisances. Through the unremitted exertions of these 

 litde scavengers, all offensive animal substances and 

 decayed vegetation are reduced to their primitive ele- 

 ments, and incorporated with the soil, which is thus 

 rendered more fertile, while the air above it becomes 

 pure and salubrious. Others are the lions, the tigers, 

 the exterminating animals of prey, of the insect world ; 

 Uving wholly by rapine, and chiefly too upon those 

 insects that are destructive to vegetation, they appear 

 destined to restrain their ravages, and are therefore to 

 be accounted benefactors to ourselves and to the use- 

 ful animals that depend upon the products of the soil 

 for support. Besides being the appropriate food 

 of many beasts, birds, and fishes, and being useful to 

 the sportsman by affording him various tempting baits, 

 as well as lines for his hooks, insects are actually em- 

 ployed by man as nutritious and palatable articles of 

 sustenance in many parts of the world. It has been 

 remarked, that " probably a large proportion of insects 

 were intended by Providence for food, and that, if we 

 will not eat them, it is unreasonable to complain of 

 their numbers." To insects are we indebted for many 



