192 



LETTER XL 



ON THE AFFECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIE YOUNG. 



AMONGST the larger animals, every observer of nature has witnessed with 

 admiration, that love of their offspring which the beneficent Creator, with 

 equal regard to the happiness of the parent and the progeny, has inter- 

 woven in the constitution of his creatures. Who that has any sensibility* 

 has not felt his heart dilate with gratitude to the Giver of all good, in 

 observing amongst the domestic animals which surround him, the effects 

 of this divine storge, so fruitful of the most delightful sensations ? Who 

 that is not a stock or a stone has read unmoved the anecdote recorded in 

 books of Natural History, of the poor bitch, which in the agonies of a 

 cruel dissection licked with parental fondness her new-born offspring ; or 

 the affecting account of the she-bear related in Phipps's Voyage to the. 

 North Pole, which, herself severely wounded by the same shot that killed 

 her cubs, spent her last moments in tearing and laying before them the 

 food she had collected, and died licking their wounds ? 



These feelings you must have experienced, but it has scarcely occurred 

 to you that you would have any room for exercising them in your new 

 pursuit. You have not, I dare say, suspected that any similar example 

 could have been adduced amongst insects, to which at the first glance 

 there seems even something absurd in attributing anything like parental 

 affection. An animal not so big perhaps as a grain of wheat, feel love for 

 its offspring how preposterous ! we are ready to exclaim. Yet the ex- 

 clamation would be very much misplaced. Nothing is more certain than 

 that insects are capable of feeling quite as much attachment to their 

 offspring as the largest quadrupeds. They undergo as severe privations 

 in nourishing them; expose themselves to as great risk in defending them; 

 and in the very article of death exhibit as much anxiety for their preser- 

 vation. Not that this can be said of all insects. A very large proportion 

 of' them are doomed to die before their young come into existence. But 

 in these the passion is not extinguished. It is merely modified, and its 

 direction changed. And when you witness the solicitude with which they 

 provide for the security and sustenance of their future young, you can 

 scarcely deny to them love for a progeny they are never destined to 

 behold. Like affectionate parents in similar circumstances, their last 

 efforts are employed in providing for the children that are to succeed 

 them. 



I. Observe the motions of that common white butterfly which you see 

 flying from herb to herb. You perceive that it is not food she is in 

 pursuit of: for flowers have no attraction for her. Her object is the dis- 

 covery of a plant that will supply the sustenance appropriated by Pro- 

 vidence to her young, upon which to deposit her eggs. Her own food 



