536 



ARTICULATA. 



like ; luiv, that even tunnels arc excavated by tlicin so immense, compared with their own size, 

 us to ho twelve times bi<?ger than tliat of IJrunel under the Thames, The modern fine 

 huly, who prities lierseH' on the hister and beauty of the scai-let hanj^iiisrs which adorn the stately 

 walls of her drawin<;-n>()Ui, or the carpets that cover its floor, fancying that nothing so rich and 

 splendid was evi-r seen before, and pitying her vulgar ancestors who were doomed to unsightly 

 whitewiush and rushes, is ignorant all the while that before she or her ancestors were in exist- 

 once, and oven before the boasted Tyrian dye was discovered, a little insect had tnown how to 

 hang the walls of its cell with tapestry of a scarlet more brilliant than any her rooms can exhibit, 

 an>l that othoi-s daily weave silken carpets both in tissue and texture, intinitely superior to those 

 she so much admires. No female ornament is more prized and costly than lace, the invention 

 and fabrication of which seems the exclusive claim of the softer sex. But even here they have 

 lM?en anticipated by these industrious little creatures, who often defend their helpless chrysalis 

 by a most singular covering, and as beautiful as singular, of lace. Other arts have been equally 

 forestalled by these creatures. What vast importance is attached to the invention of paper ! 

 For nearly six thousand years one of our commonest insects has known how to make and apply 

 it to its purposes; and even pasteboard, superior in substance and polish to any thing we can 

 pnxluce, is manufactured by another. We imagine that nothing short of human intellect can 

 be ocpial to the construction of a diving-bell or an air-pump, yet a spider is in the daily habit of 

 using the one, and what is more, one exactly similar in principle to ours, but more ingeniously 

 contrived, by means of which she resides unwetted in the bosom of the water, and procures the 

 necessary supplies of air by a much more simple process than our alternating buckets ; and the 

 caterpillar of a little moth knows liow to imitate the other, producing a vaeimm, when necessary 

 for its purposes, without any piston beside its own body. If we think with wonder of the popu- 

 lous cities which have employed the united labors of man for many ages to brino- them to their 

 full extent, what shall we say to the white ants, which require only a few months to build a me- 

 tropolis capable of containing an infinitely greater number of inhabitants than even imperial 

 Nineveh, Babylon, Rome, or Pekin in all their glory ?" 



BUTTERFLT, GRCB OR CATERPILLAR, AXD PtJPA OR CHRYSALIS. 



The metamorphoses of insects have been noted as among the wonders of nature from the 

 earliest ages. " The butterfly which amuses you with its aerial excursions, one while extracting 

 nectar from the tube of the honeysuckle, and then, the very image of fickleness, flying to a rose, 

 as if to contrast the hue of its wings with that of the flower on which it reposes,' did not come 

 mto the world as you now behold it. At its first exclusion from the egg, and for some months 

 of Its existence afterward, it was a worm-like caterpillar, crawling upon sixteen short legs, greedily 

 devourmg leaves with two jaws, and seeing by means of twelve eyes so minute as to be nearly 



