IN THE INSECT WORLD. 



certain that some other and equally fatal visitation 

 assails them, and reduces their numbers during the 

 long period which is required to perfect their state : 

 for though, by feeding and care^ (for they are very 

 impatient of confinement,) we can obtain the moth in 

 numbers, yet few seem to survive and become per- 

 fected by the common processes of nature, at least 

 I have seldom found them in this state,, though the 

 larvae is so plentifully seen. 



The designs of supreme intelligence in the creation 

 and preservation of the insect world, and the regu- 

 lations and appointments whereby their increase or 

 decrease is maintained, and periodical appearance 

 prescribed, are among the most perplexing con- 

 siderations of natural history. That insects are 

 kept in reserve for stated seasons of action we know, 

 being commonly made the agents of 'Providence in 

 his visitations of mankind. The locust, the cater- 

 pillar, the palmer worm, the various family of 

 blights, that poison in the spring all the promise of 

 the year, are insects. Mildew, indeed, is a vegeta- 

 ble ; but the wireworm destroys the root, the thrips 

 the germe of the wheat, and hunger and famine 

 ensue. Many of the coleopterae remove nuisances, 

 others again incumbrances, and worms manure the 

 soil ; but these are trite and isolated cases in the 

 profusion of the animal world; and, left alone, as 

 we are, in the desert of mere reason and conjecture, 

 there is no probability that much satisfactory eluci- 



