COLEOPTEROUS INSECTS. 73 



chese, equally ramified and divided, to convey air 

 and life into this inextricable tissue. This is a 

 spectacle, says Cuvier, altogether transporting by its 

 delicacy and regularity. Even to the fine assortment 

 of its colours, every thing seems as if made on pur- 

 pose to please the eye of man, which now perhaps 

 looked upon it for the first time since the creation.* 

 .Each tribe of this extensive class of animals pos- 

 sesses peculiar attributes deserving of our regard. 

 The extreme beauty of the Lepidoptera or butter- 

 flies, the striking contrast they present in the dif- 

 ferent stages of their existence, so remarkable as to 

 have caused them to be regarded by a mystical phi- 

 losophy as the types of the human soul released from 

 its material encumbrance, their habits and times 

 of appearance, the one suggesting the purity of an 

 ethereal nature, the other associating them in the 

 mind of the observer with the beauty of external 

 nature, and the genial influences of the seasons, 

 have alike contributed to render them objects of 

 general favour. The absence of imposing forms 

 and splendour of ornament among the Hymenoptera, 

 is amply compensated by their interesting habits, 

 arid beautiful adaptation of structure to the perfect 

 fulfilment of those wonderful instincts which in 

 every age have excited the admiration of mankind. 

 Without possessing in equal perfection the beauty 

 of the Lepidoptera, or the exquisite economy of the 



* Rapport sur PHistoire Naturelle. 



