INSECTS. 243 



insects indigenous to Great Britain maybe estimated at 10,000. 

 Including the Arachnides and Crustacea, 100,000 species are 

 computed already to have a place in cabinets. 



The slow progress of the science of Entomology has left to 

 be discovered by future inquirers many of the uses of Insects 

 in the economy of Nature. From what is known, however, of 

 certain races, the analogical inference regarding the whole may 

 be deduced, as equally proofs of Divine wisdom and benefi- 

 cence. Myriads of these small and incessant workers, by their 

 feeding on dead, decayed, or excrementitious matters, not only 

 preserve the atmosphere in purity, but themselves enjoy the 

 blessings of existence. Some furnish an agreeable food ; and 

 others are employed in medicine and the arts. Many form the 

 chief or only subsistence of quadrupeds, birds, and reptiles ; 

 and the silk-worm furnishes one of the most beautiful materials 

 for dress. It has been remarked, that from the study of En- 

 tomology many useful arts might have been derived. Thus 

 the hornets composed their dwelling of a species of paper, long 

 before the manufacture of that invaluable article was stumbled 

 on by human ingenuity; the Tenthredines or saw-flies cut 

 the branches of trees with their serrated instruments, long be- 

 fore the use of the saw was discovered in the arts ; and their 

 small but powerful instrument has still this advantage over 

 the mechanic's tool, that it combines the properties of a rasp 

 and file along with that of a saw. The wood-boring bee and 

 the Ichneumons are possessed of an apparatus for boring, from 

 which even human ingenuity may improve their implements 

 destined for similar purposes. A small animal of the size of the 

 common ant (the Termes) builds in an incredibly short space 

 of time in Africa and Asia a dwelling of fifteen or sixteen feet 

 in height, upon which the pick-axe makes no impression ; and 

 finally, the organs with which the butterflies, the Culices, 

 and the common flies pump up the juices upon which they feed, 

 might possibly afford hints for improvement in instruments used 

 for a similar purpose in the arts. 



" These animals," says Latreille, " are often so minute, that 

 one cannot even discover their forms without the aid of the mi- 

 croscope ; but to the eye of the philosopher the mass or volume 

 of an object is a matter of little consequence. The wisdom of the 

 Creator never appears with more effect than in the structure of 



