366 NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



gnats have an apparatus to raise their hacks to the 

 top of the water, and so take breath. The hydro- 

 canthari do the hke by thrusting their tails out of 

 the water.* The maggot of the eruca labra has 

 a long tail, one part sheathed within another, (but 

 which it can draw out at pleasure,) wdth a starry 

 tuft at the end, by which tuft, when expanded 

 upon the surface, the insect both supports itself in 

 the ^vater, and draws in the air which is neces- 

 sary. In the article of natural clothing, we have 

 the skins of animals invested with scales, hair, fea- 

 thers, mucus, froth, or itself turned into a sliell or 

 crust. In the no less necessary article of offence 

 and defence, we have teeth, talons, beaks, horns, 

 stings, prickles, with (the most singular expedient 

 for the same purpose) the power of giving the 

 electric shock, and, as is credibly related of some 

 animals, of driving away their pursuers by an in- 

 tolerable foetor, or of blackening the water through 

 which they are pursued. The consideration of 

 these appearances might induce us to believe that 

 iia.riety itself, distinct from every other reason, 

 was a motive in the mind of the Creator, or with 

 the agents of his will. 



To this great variety in organized life the Deity 

 has given, or perhaps there arises out of it, a cor- 

 responding variety of animal appetites. For the 

 final cause of this we have not far to seek. Did 

 all animals covet the same element, retreat, or 



* Derham, p. 7. 



