220 NATURAL THEOLOi>Y. 



The sting also of the bee has this relation to the honey, 

 that it is necessary for the protection of a treasure which 

 invites so many robbers. 



III. Our business is with mechanism. In the pannrpa 

 tribe of insects, there is a forceps in the tail of the male 

 insect, with which he catches and holds the female. Are a 

 pair of pincers more mechanical than this provision in its 

 structure ; or is any structure more clear and certain in its 

 design ? 



] \'. bt. Pierre tells us,^ that in a fly with six feet — I do 

 not remember that he describes the species — the pair next 

 the head and the pair next the tail have brushes at their 

 extremities, with which the fly dresses, as there may be 

 occasion, the anterior or the posterior part of its body ; but 

 that the middle pair have no such brushes, the situation of 

 these legs not admitting of the brushes, if they were there, 

 being converted to the same use. This is a very exact 

 mechanical distinction. 



V. If the reader, looking to our distributions of science, 

 wish to contemplate the chemistry as well as the mechan- 

 ism of nature, the insect creation will aflbrd him an exam- 

 ple. I refer to the light in the tail of a glowicorm. Two 

 points seem to be agreed upon by naturalists concerning it : 

 first, that it is phosphoric ; secondly, that its use is to attract 

 the male insect. The only thing to be inquired after is the 

 singularity, if any such there be, in the natural history of 

 this animal, which should render a provision of this kind 

 more necessary for it than for other insects. That singu- 

 larity seems to be the difference which subsists between the 

 male and the female, which difference is greater than what 

 we find in any other species of animal whatever. The glow- 

 worm is a female cateiyillar, the male of which is a jiy, 

 lively, comparatively small, dissimilar to the female in ap- 

 pearance, probably also as distinguished from her in habits 

 pursuits, and manners, as he is unlike in form and external 

 * Vol. I., p. 342. 



