258 POPULAR ENTOMOLOGY. 



science in its perfection, namely, by forming a collection ; 

 but it is very evident that insects have not any of the sus- 

 ceptibility to pain that is found in the higher order of 

 animals, for they are frequently seen flying about with ap- 

 parently the usual sense of enjoyment, when they have been 

 deprived by accident of some of their due proportion of 

 legs or wings ; I myself once caught a Tiger-Moth on the 

 wing, which on examination was found to have lost nearly 

 the whole of the lower part of the body. The Rev. Mr. 

 Bird gives a curious instance of the bluntness of sensation 

 in insects ; he says : " When I was young in Entomology 

 I wished anxiously to find the quickest mode of killing 

 insects, and having captured a pretty beetle, I took a pair 

 of scissors and divided it at the junction of the thorax and 

 trunk ; the parts fell on a piece of white paper which lay 

 before me. Far from being dead, I was grieved and sur- 

 prised to see the head and fore legs begin to run about 

 the paper ; it Occasionally stumbled, but rose again, and 

 exhibited, if I may so speak, perfect self-possession ; it 

 made for the edge of the paper, but arriving there, and 

 looking down, it seemed to think it too precipitous, and 

 so coasted along in search of an easier descent, which 

 it did not seem able to find. This searching for a con- 



