8 Insect Architecture. 



own comfort and security. The injuries which they inflict 

 upon us are extensive and complicated ; and the remedies 

 which we attempt, by the destruction of those creatures, 

 both insects, birds, and quadrupeds, who keep the ravages 

 in check, are generally aggravations of the evil, because 

 they are directed by an ignorance of the economy of nature. 

 The little knowledge which we have of the modes by which 

 insects may be impeded in their destruction of much that 

 is valuable to us, has probably proceeded from our contempt 

 of their individual insignificance. The security of property 

 has ceased to be endangered by quadrupeds of prey, and 

 yet our gardens are ravaged by aphides and caterpillars. 

 It is somewhat startling to affirm that the condition of the 

 human race is seriously injured by these petty annoyances ; 

 but it is perfectly true that the art and industry of man 

 have not yet been able to overcome the collective force, the 

 individual perseverance, and the complicated machinery of 

 destruction which insects employ. A small ant, according 

 to a most careful and philosophical observer, opposes almost 

 invincible obstacles to the progress of civilization in many 

 parts of the equinoctial zone. These animals devour paper 

 and parchment ; they destroy every book and manuscript. 

 Many provinces of Spanish America cannot, in consequence, 

 show a written document of a hundred years' existence. 

 " What development," he adds, "can the civilization of a 

 people assume, if there be nothing to connect the present 

 with the past if the depositories of human knowledge must 

 be constantly renewed if the monuments of genius and 

 wisdom cannot be transmitted to posterity ?" * Again, there 

 are beetles which deposit their larvaB in trees in such formi- 

 dable numbers that whole forests perish beyond the power 

 of remedy. The pines of the Hartz have thus been de- 

 stroyed to an enormous extent ; and in North America, at 

 one place in South Carolina, at least ninety trees in every 

 hundred, upon a tract of two thousand acres, were swept 

 away by a small black, winged bug. And yet, according 

 to Wilson, the historian of American birds, the people of 

 * Humboldt, Voyage, lib. vii., ch. 20. 



