NOT SUGGESTIVE TO MAN. 301 



hit upon this wonder-working implement would have no 

 doubt laughed incredulously on being told that he was using 

 the same sort of agency to rend, perhaps an oak, as that em- 

 ployed by a bee beside him to effect its entrance or egress 

 through the closed door of a blossom of toad-flax or snap- 

 dragon. The insect, in accomplishment of this purpose, rests 

 on the lower lip of the flower, insinuates its tongue between 

 the upper lip and the valve, and then thrusting in its head, 

 acts with it as a wedge to force the shut edges asunder.* It 

 is, perhaps, not surprising that insects, by reason of their 

 littleness, should have failed, as well as more bulky though 

 less clever adepts in art instinctive, to serve as our instruc- 

 tors ; yet had only their operations been carefully noticed, or 

 could they, in early ages, have been so observed, hints must 

 have been thence derived such as could scarcely have failed to 

 antedate not only some of the boasted discoveries of modern 

 science, but also those leading arts of building, navigation, 

 and clothing, which the polished nations of the world have 

 been so long in acquiring, and the rude ones have scarcely 

 yet learnt. But if insect operatives and operations have, till 

 of late, been overlooked, it is even less to be wondered at that 

 insect mechanisms, or the instruments with which they operate, 

 should, to us, have proved useless as patterns, seeing that 

 these could not, in most cases, have been even perceived 

 without the aid, on our part, of instruments of observation 



* See Insect Miscellanies.' 



