172 INSECT EXTINCTION. 



but none can bestow meet observance on their exquisite beauty, 

 or due thought on their surpassing endowments of instinct 

 and adapted organs, without ranking them higher than they 

 were wont in the scale of being, and feeling of course a pro- 

 portionate reluctance to dislodge one from its assigned place. 



Now this act of dislodgment would seem, from the in- 

 stances of insect vitality above recorded, to be a matter of no 

 easy accomplishment ; but it is not always, or even usually, 

 that these little spirits cling so firmly to their tiny tenements. 

 Notwithstanding the marvellous resuscitation of our " boiled 

 bees," heat is an agent whose notice to quit is seldom dis- 

 regarded by insect tenants. 



The life of a moth or butterfly, placed in a cup closely 

 covered, then set in boiling water, is usually extinct in two or 

 three minutes; and moths that are small, flies, and other 

 lesser insects, put under a glass with a few fresh laurel leaves, 

 well bruised or cut, are soon, to all appearance, and often in 

 reality, killed by the emission of prussic acid. It is requisite, 

 however, to make the dose powerful, or repeat it, the -seem- 

 ingly extinguished spark of life being otherwise apt to rekin- 

 dle. Before stiffness follows death, subjects for the cabinet 

 are transfixed with slender pins, and set up on cork ; small 

 angular slips of card being employed with other pins to keep 

 the wings and other parts in a natural position. 



Lastly, though as matter of reasonable inference we feel 

 almost certain, that the sensitivity of insects to corporeal pain 



