8 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 



he stands unrivalled as an architect, and that his buildings are without a 

 parallel among the works of the inferior orders of animals. He would be 

 of a different opinion did he attend to the history of insects : he would 

 find that many of them have been architects from time immemorial ; that 

 they have had their houses divided into various apartments, and containing 

 staircases, gigantic arches, domes, colonnades, and the like ; nay, that even 

 tunnels are excavated by them so immense, compared with their own size, 

 as to be twelve times bigger than that of Sir M. I. Brunei under the 

 Thames. 1 The modern fine lady, who prides herself on the lustre and 

 beauty of the scarlet hangings which adorn the stately walls of her drawing- 

 room, or the carpets that cover its floor, fancying that nothing so rich and 

 splendid was ever seen before, and pitying her vulgar ancestors, who were 

 doomed to unsightly white-wash and rushes, is ignorant all the while, that 

 before she or her ancestors were in existence, and even before the boasted 

 Tyrian dye was discovered, a little insect had known how to hang the 

 walls of its cell with tapestry of a scarlet more brilliant than any her rooms 

 can exhibit 2 , and that others daily weave silken carpets, both in tissue and 

 texture infinitely superior to those she so much admires. No female 

 ornament is more prized and costly than lace, the invention and fabrication 

 of which seems the exclusive claim of the softer sex. But even here they 

 have been anticipated by these little industrious creatures, who often de- 

 fend their helpless chrysalis by a most singular covering, and as beautiful 

 as singular, of lace. 3 Other arts have been equally forestalled by these 

 creatures. "What vast importance is attached to the invention of paper ! 

 For nearly six thousand years one of our commonest insects has known 

 how to make and apply it to its purposes 4 ; and even pasteboard, superior 

 in substance and polish to any we can produce, is manufactured by 

 another. 5 We imagine that nothing short of human intellect can be equal 

 to the construction of a diving-bell or an air-pump yet a spider is in the 

 daily habit of using the one, and, what is more, one exactly similar in 

 principle to ours, but more ingeniously contrived ; by means of which she 

 resides unwetted in the bosom of the water, and procures the necessary 

 supplies of air by a much more simple process than our alternating buckets 6 

 and the caterpillar of a little moth knows how to imitate the other, 

 producing a vacuum, when necessary for its purposes, without any piston 

 beside its own body. 7 If we think with wonder of the populous cities 

 which have employed the united labours of man for many ages to bring 

 them to their full extent, what shall we say to the white ants, which 

 require only a few months to build a metropolis capable of containing an 

 infinitely greater number of inhabitants than even imperial Nineveh, Baby- 

 lon, Rome, or Pekin, in all their glory ? 



That insects should thus have forestalled us in our inventions ought to 

 urge us to pay a closer attention to them and their ways than we have 

 hitherto done, since it is not at all improbable that the result would be 

 many useful hints for the improvement of our arts and manufactures, and 



1 The white ants. 9 Megachile Papaveris. 



3 The late ingenious Mr. Paul, of Harlston in Norfolk, under the bark of a tree 

 discovered a considerable portion of a fabric of this kind, which from its amplitude 

 must have been destined for some other purpose. 



* The common wasp. 5 Chartergus nidulans. 



* Argyrojieta aquatica* ' Tinea serratella L. 



