ON ANIMAL LIFE. 



IZ'T 



wings, generally called beetles; the. hemiptera, of which the sheaths are of 

 a softer nature, and cross each other, as grasshoppers, bugs, and plant lice; 

 the lepidoptera, with dusty scales on their wings, as butterflies and moths; 

 the neuroptera, as the libellula, or dragon fly, the may fly, and other insects 

 with four transparent wings, but without stings; the hymenoptera, which 

 have stings, either poisonous or not, as bees, wasps, and ichneumons; the 

 diptera, with two wings, as common flies and gnats, which have halteres, 

 or balancing rods, instead of the second pair of wings; and lastly the aptera, 

 without any wings, which form the seventh order, comprehending crabs, 

 lobsters, shrimps and prawns, for these are properly insects; spiders, scor- 

 pions, millepeds, centipeds, mites, and monoculi. The monoculus is a genus 

 including the little active insects found in pond water, w'hich are scarcely 

 visible to the naked eye, as well as the Molucca crab, which is the largest 

 of all insects, being sometimes six feet long. Besides these there are several 

 genera of apterous insects which are parasitical, and infest the human race 

 as well as other animals. 



The vermes are the last and lowest of animated beings, yet some of tbetti-^,^^>i^r, '^^■^ 

 are not deficient either in magnitude or in beauty. The most natural divi-- 



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sion of vermes is into five orders; the intestina, as earthworms and ascarides, 

 which are distinguished by the want of moveable appendages, or tentacula, 

 from the mollusca'; such as the dew snail,, the cuttle fish, the sea anemone, 

 and the hydra, or fresh water polype. The testacea have shells of one or 

 more pieces, and most of them inhabit the sea, and are called shell fish, as 

 the limpet, the periwinkle, the snail, the muscle, the oyster, and the 

 barnacle. The order zoophyta contains corallines, sponges, and other com- 

 pound animals, united by a common habitation, which has the general ap- 

 pearance of a vegetable, although of animal origin; each of the little inhabit- 

 ants, resembling a hydra, or polype, imitating by its extended arms the appear- 

 ance of an imperfect flower. The last order, infusoria, is scarcely distinguished 

 from the intestina and mollusca by any other character than the minuteness 

 of the individuals belonging to it, and their spontaneous appearance in 

 animal and vegetable infusions, where we can discover no traces of the man- 

 ner in which they are produced. The process, by which their numbers are 

 sometimes increased, is no less astonishing than their first production ; for 

 several of the genera often appear to divide spontaneously,, into two or more 



