CLASS V. INSECTS. 303 



service in trade and domestic economy ; but how many of 

 this class are noxious, or at best useless ! Even in popu- 

 lous and cultivated countries, where injurious animals 

 have been repressed, or reduced within moderate bounds, 

 insects still maintain their ground without diminution, and 

 are often unwelcome intruders on the fruits of human 

 industry. But in wilder and less peopled regions, their 

 annoyances and devastations are inconceivable. What a 

 miserable idea must we form respecting the life of a Lap- 

 lander, as well as of the natives of several parts of America 

 and Africa, where a candle is no sooner lighted than 

 the insect tribes instantly extinguish it ; where meat is 

 no sooner produced than it is immediately covered with 

 them ; where the inhabitants, to defend their persons, 

 are obliged to use the most disgusting unguents ; and 

 where, though millions are destroyed, millions constantly 

 succeed, and increase the vexations of those unpropitious 

 climates. 



While it must be confessed that insects are generally of 

 little value or use, in regard to the wants or conveniences 

 of man, yet, as partakers of the life in which he shares, 

 and as part among the works of the beneficent FATHER 

 of ALL, they are surely entitled to consideration and 

 humanity. To destroy a large animal wantonly is a 

 species of cruelty, at which the feeling, well-instructed 

 mind would revolt ; but we see insects, not really noxious, 

 destroyed without the least check of compunction. This 

 practice seems to arise from the gross error of supposing 

 that every thing is really in itself contemptible, which 

 happens to have a body infinitely disproportionate to our 

 own ; not considering that great and little are merely 

 relative terms, and that 



the poor beetle that we tread upon, 

 In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great 

 As when a giant dies. 



Indeed there is every reason to believe, that the sensa- 

 tions of many insects are as exquisite as those in animals 



