106 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Nearly all insects undergo three changes. 



head, which are endowed with a very nice sense 

 of feeling. 



Cuvier, who, in all his examinations, could 

 find neither a heart nor arteries in insects, says, 

 that their whole organization is such as we would 

 expect to find if they had been actually known 

 not to he provided with such organs. Their 

 nutrition, therefore, would seem to be carried on 

 by immediate absorption, as is evidently the case 

 with the polypes, and other zoophytes, which are 

 considerably below insects in the perfection of 

 their organization. 



Nearly all insects (except spiders, and a few 

 others of the apterous tribe, which proceed nearly 

 in a perfect state from the egg) undergo a meta- 

 morphosis at three different periods of their ex- 

 istence. They are generally so short lived, that 

 the parents have but seldom an opportunity of 

 seeing their living offspring. Consequently, they 

 are neither provided with milk, like viviparous 

 animals, nor are they, like birds, impelled to sit 

 upon their eggs in order to bring their young to 

 perfection. In place of these, the all-directing 

 Power has endued each species with the astonish- 

 ing faculty of being able to discover what sub- 

 stance is best to afford the most proper food for 

 its young; though such food is for the most part 

 so totally different from that which the parent 

 itself could eat, as that, in many cases, it would 

 prove a deadly poison to it. Some of them at- 

 tach their eggs to the bark, or insert them into 



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