240 THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



life and joy in the effulgence of the Divine favour. 

 The Bard of Twickenham, from the terms in which 

 his beautiful description of his sylphs is conceived in 

 the ' Bape of the Lock ' seems to have witnessed the 

 pleasing scene here described : 



' Some to the sun their insect wings unfold, 

 Waft on the breeze, or sink in clouds of gold; 

 Transparent forms, too fine for mortal sight, 

 Their fluid bodies half dissolved in light; 

 Loose to the wind their airy garments flew, 

 Thin glittering textures of the filmy dew, 

 Dipt in the richest tincture of the skies, 

 Where light disports in ever mingling dyes, 

 While every beam new transient colours flings, 

 Colours that change whene'er they wave their wings.' " 



4. HYMENOPTEKA (Membrane-winged). 



The Hymenoptera are those insects which have four 

 membraneous wings. The Bees (Apidae, fig. 16), Wasps 

 (Vespidae), the Ants (Formicidae), and the Ichneumon 

 Plies (Ichneumonidse), are the chief tribes of this 

 order. The Bees, Wasps, and Ants are celebrated for 

 forming societies, more perfectly arranged and governed 

 than in any other creatures but man. It is curious that 

 the most perfect instincts (such as approach so nearly 

 to reason that they almost defy us to make a distinction) 

 should have been given by the Creator to creatures so 

 far removed from man in the scale of existence, and so 

 little resembling him in any other particular. This is 

 one of the stumbling-blocks in the way of those who 

 wish to have it believed that all animals are progressive 

 from certain types, which cannot be got over ; if such 

 were the case, man would be most nearly imitated by 

 the Apes, and these again by those most nearly allied to 

 them, and so on downwards, but here we find a govern- 

 ment almost as perfect as that of the human species an 

 arrangement of work, a division of labour, buildings, 

 storehouses, &c. showing nearly all the social habits 

 and feelings of man, in creatures who in form and size 

 have no resemblance to him. 



