80 BOOK OF NATURE LAID 



To them nor stores, nor granaries belong; 

 Nought but the woodland and the pleasing songr 

 Yet, your kind heavenly Father bends his eye 

 On the least wing that flits along the sky/* 



CHAP. VIII. 



INSECTS. 



" Where greatness is to Nature's works deny*<J, 

 In art and beauty it is well supplied : 

 In a small space the more perfection's shown, 

 And what is exquisite in little's done." 



INSECTS have been reckoned by some among 

 the more imperfectly formed of Nature's works; 

 but in this most numerous class of animated beings, 

 where shall we find a single instance in which this is 

 made to appear? In all that prodigious variety 

 that exist between the Scorpion and the Mite, we 

 certainly behold in the structure of insects abundant 

 evidence of the most exquisite skill ; and if by means 

 of the microscope we extend our researches down- 

 wards through that minute order of beings, till we 

 arrive at those invisible animalcules which are com- 

 puted to be twenty-seven millions of times smaller 

 than the mite, the same evidence of wisdom and 

 design present themselves in every gradation, and 

 all ideas of imperfection eease. 



