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CHAPTER XXII. 



INSECTS. 



Their Integuments Their Metamorphoses Larvae Pupse Perfect Insects- 

 Antennae Eyes Masticatory Organs Chewing and Sucking Insects Digestive 

 Organs of the Carnivorous and Herbivorous Insects Motions of Insects 

 Elateridse Aquatic Insects Foot of the Fly Wings Respiratory Organs 

 Tracheae and Stigmata The Butterfly's Wing under the Microscope Defences 

 of Insects Vitality Concealments The Caddice Fly The Small Ermine Moth 

 The Clothes Moth Hunting Manoeuvres of the Mantis The Ant Lion The 

 Larva of the Tiger Beetle Insect Plagues Insects Useful to Man Their 

 Numberless Enemies Their Wonderful Instincts Care for their Young The 

 Rhynchites Betulae Dung and Sexton Beetles Their Remarkable Intelli- 

 gence The Sand Wasp Ichneumon Flies Breeze Flies The Earwig The 

 Mole Cricket The Dirt Dauber and Trypoxylon The Leaf Cutters The 

 Carpenter Bee The Chartergus Nidulans The Hive Bee The Ants and Ter- 

 mites. 



THOUGH small in size, the Insects are great, by their infinite 

 varieties of form, their prodigious numbers, their wonderful 

 organization, their astonishing metamorphoses, and their truly 

 marvellous instincts. From whatever point of view we may 

 consider them, they constantly afford new subjects of admira- 

 tion and delight ; for all that is either beautiful and graceful, 

 interesting and alluring, or curious and singular in every other 

 class and" order of the animal world has been combined and 

 concentrated in these miniature masterpieces of Nature, a 

 glimpse into whose economy opens to every reflective mind the 

 portals of the spiritual world, and plainly reveals the Deity who 

 called them into life. 



A thick and weighty harness of chalk, like that of the crus- 

 taceans, would have been far too cumbersome for delicate and 

 tiny creatures, generally destined for rapid motions; and thus we 

 find the insects covered with a thin vestment of incorruptible 

 chitine, a hornlike substance equally light and strong, which, 

 without considerably adding to their weight, answers every 



