48 THE VITAL FUNCTIONS. 



The equitable mode in which nature dispenses to her in- 

 numerable offspring the food she has provided for their sub- 

 sistence, apportioning to each the quantity and the kind 

 most consonant to enlarged views of prospective benefi- 

 cence, is calculated to excite our highest wonder and admi- 

 ration. While the waste is the smallest possible, we find 

 that nothing which can afford nutriment is wholly lost. 

 There is no part of the organized structure of an animal or 

 vegetable, however dense its texture, or acrid its qualities, 

 that may not, under certain circumstances, become the food 

 of some species of insect, or contribute in some mode to the 

 support of animal life. The more succulent parts of plants, 

 such as the leaves, or softer stems, are the principal sources 

 of nourishment to the greater number of larger quadrupeds, 

 to multitudes of insects, as well as to numerous tribes of 

 other animals. Some plants are more particularly assigned 

 as the appropriate nutriment of particular species, which 

 would perish if these ceased to grow: thus the silkworm 

 subsists almost exclusively upon the leaves of the mulberry 

 tree; and many species of caterpillars are attached each to a 

 particular plant which they prefer to all others. There are 

 at least fifty difierent species of insects that feed upon the 

 common nettle; and plants, of which the juices are most 

 acrid and poisonous to the generality of animals, such as 

 Eitphorbium, Henbane, and Nightshade, afford a whole- 

 some and delicious food to others. Innumerable tribes of 

 animals subsist upon fruits and seeds, while others feast 

 upon the juices which they extract from flowers, or other 

 parts of plants; others, again, derive their principal nourish- 

 ment from the hard fibres of the bark or wood. 



Still more general is the consumption of animal matter by 

 various animals. Every class has its carnivorous tribes, 

 which consume living prey of every denomination; some 

 being formed to devour the flesh of the larger species, whe- 

 ther quadrupeds, birds, or fish; others feeding on reptiles 

 or mollusca, and some satisfying their appetite with insects 

 alone. The habits of the more diminutive tribes are not 



