OF INSECTS IN GENERAL. 



Astonishing contrivances for their young. 



the leaves of trees and other vegetable sub- 

 stances; others form nests, which they store 

 with insects or caterpillars that will attain the 

 exact state in which they are proper food for 

 their young when they shall awaken into life; 

 others bury them in the bodies of other insects ; 

 and others fall upon astonishing contrivances 

 to convey their eggs into the body, or the 

 internal viscera of larger animals. Some drop 

 their eggs into the water, in which they them- 

 selves would soon be destroyed, as if they fore- 

 saw that their progeny, in its first state of ex- 

 istence, could only subsist in that element. In 

 short, the variety of contrivances that are adopt- 

 ed by insects to insure the subsistence of their 

 young when they shall come into life are beyond, 

 enumeration. It may, however, with great truth 

 be said, that all the means they adopt are so per- 

 fectly adapted to answer the purpose intended, 

 as to discover a degree of knowledge that leaves 

 the boasted wisdom of man at an infinite distance 

 behind. 



The insect, as soon as it comes out of the egg, 

 was by former entomologists called eruca; but 

 ias this is synonimous with the botanic name 

 sisymbriurn, it was changed by Linnaeus for the 

 term larva, a name expressive of the insect's be- 

 ing, in this state, as it were masked, having its 

 true appearance concealed. Under this mask, 

 or skin, the entire insect, such as it afterwards 

 appears when perfect, lies concealed, enveloped 



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