OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 29 



unlucky boy who has endeavoured to catch it, and will fly here and there 

 with as much agility and unconcern as if nothing had happened to it ; and 

 an insect impaled upon a pin will often devour its prey with as much 

 avidity as when at liberty. Were a giant eviscerated, his body divided in 

 the middle, or his head cut off, it would be all over with him ; he would 

 move no more ; he would be dead to the calls of hunger, or the emotions 

 of fear, anger, or love. Not so our insects. I have seen the common 

 cock-chafer walk about with apparent indifference after some bird had 

 nearly emptied its body of its viscera : an humble-bee will eat honey with 

 greediness though deprived of its abdomen ; and I myself lately saw an 

 ant, which had been brought out of the nest by its comrades, walk when 

 deprived of its head. The head of a wasp will attempt to bite after it is 

 separated from the rest of the body; and the abdomen under similar cir- 

 cumstances, if the finger be moved to it, will attempt to sting. And, what 

 is more extraordinary, the headless trunk of a male Mantis has been known 

 to unite itself to the other sex *; and a dragon-fly to eat its own tail, as 

 we learn from J. F. Stephens, Esq., author of the valuable " Illustrations 

 of British Entomology," who, while entomologising near Whittleseamere, 

 having directed the tail of one of these insects which he had caught to its 

 mouth, to make an experiment whether the known voracity of the tribe 

 would lead it to bite itself, saw to his astonishment that it actually bit off and 

 ate the four terminal segments of its body, and then by accident escaping 

 flew away as briskly as ever ! 2 These facts, out of hundreds that might be 

 adduced, are surely sufficient to prove that insects do not experience the 

 same acute sensations of pain with the higher order of animals, which 

 Providence has endowed with more ample means of avoiding them. And 

 since they were to be exposed so universally to attack and injury, this is a 

 most merciful provision in their favour; for, were it otherwise, considering 

 the wounds, and dismemberments, and lingering deaths that insects often 

 suffer, what a vast increase would there be of the general sum of pain and 

 misery! You will now, I think, allow that the most humane person need 

 not hesitate a moment whether he shall devote himself to the study of 

 Entomology on account of any cruelty attached to the pursuit. 



But if some morbid sentimentalist should still exclaim, '* Oh ! but I 

 cannot persuade myself, even for scientific purposes, to inflict the slightest 

 degree of pain upon the most insensible of creatures " Pray, sir or 

 madam, I would ask, should your green-house be infested by Aphides, or 

 your grapery by the semianimate Coccus, would this extreme of tenderness 

 induce you to restrict your gardener from destroying them ? Are you 

 willing to deny yourself these unnecessary gratifications, and to resign your 

 favourite flowers and fruit at the call of your fine feelings ? Or will you 

 give up the shrimps, which by their relish enable you to play a better part 

 with your bread and butter at breakfast, and thus, instead of adding to it, 

 contribute to diminish the quantity of food ? If not, I shall only desire 

 you to recollect that, for a mere personal indulgence, you cause the death 

 of an infinitely greater number of animals than all the entomologists in the 

 world destroy for the promotion of science. 



To these considerations, which I have no doubt you will think conclusive 

 as to the unreasonableness and inconsistency of the objections made against 



1 Dr. Smith's Tour, i. 162. Journ. de Phys xxv. 336. 

 8 Stephens in Ent. Mag. i. 518. 



