300 INSECTS. 



dation will be obtained. They are not perhaps 

 important objects of inquiry; but when we see 

 the extraordinary care and attention that has been 

 bestowed upon this part of creation, our astonish- 

 ment is excited, and forces into action that inherent 

 desire in our minds to seek into hidden things. In 

 some calm summer's evening ramble, we see the air 

 filled with sportive animated beings : the leaf, the 

 branch, the bark of the tree, every mossy bank, the 

 pool, the ditch, all teeming with animated life, with 

 a profusion, an endless variety of existence ; each 

 creature pursuing its own separate purpose in a 

 settled course of action, admitting of no deviation 

 or substitution, to accomplish or promote some 

 ordained object. Some appear occupied in seeking 

 for the most appropriate stations for their own 

 necessities, and exerting stratagems and wiles to 

 secure the lives of themselves or their offspring 

 against natural or possible injuries, with a fore- 

 thought equivalent or superior to reason ; the aim 

 in some others we can little perceive, or, should 

 some flash of light spring up, and give us a momen- 

 tary glimpse of nature's hidden ways, immediate 

 darkness closes round, and renders our ignorance 

 more manifest. We see a wonderfully fabricated 

 creature struggling from the cradle of its being, 

 just perfected by the elaboration of months or years,, 

 and decorated with a vest of glorious splendour \ 

 it spreads its wings to the light of heaven, and be- 



