INSECTS WITHOUT WINGS. 371 



Though the bee, the silk-worm, the cochineal fly, and 

 the cantharides, are all peculiarly serviceable to man- 

 kind, yet many of the insect tribe prove a great annoy- 

 ance, and deprive them of many enjoyments in life. 

 How comfortless must be the situation of the inhabitants 

 of Lapland, and some parts of America, where the mo- 

 ment a candle is lighted they will extinguish the flame, 

 and where they are obliged to rub their bodies with 

 different compositions to prevent their enemies from 

 attacking them, and inflicting the severest pain. 



Definitions in general produce little knowledge ; but, 

 where the shades of Nature are intimately blended, 

 some discrimination must be made; and, in the first of 

 the order, we shall describe those insects which are 

 without wings, and creep upon the ground ; all these, 

 the flea and wood-louse excepted, are known to be 

 produced from an egg. 



The second order consists of such as have wings, 

 though not capable of moving them for some little time, 

 as they are cased up in a kind of covering, which the 

 creature bursts in a few days ; thus the grasshopper, 

 the dragon-fly, and the ear-wig, have the wings con- 

 fined by a skin not unlike a pair of stays. 



The third order of insects is of the moth and butterfly 

 kind; all of which have two pair of wings, covered with 

 a kind of downy substance of various colours, and of a 

 beautiful hue, which adheres to the fingers if only 

 slightly touched, and, if examined through a microscope, 

 appears as if richly embroidered with different colour- 

 ed scales. Insects of this species are first hatched from 

 an egg, from whence proceeds a caterpillar that eats and 

 often casts its skin : it afterwards assumes a different 

 form, and becomes a chrysalis, or the cone in the silk- 



b b 2 



