4 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



there were about one hundred species altogether new^ 

 and not before in any collection which he had in- 

 spected, including several new genera; while many 

 insects reputed scarce were in considerable plenty.* 

 The locahties of insects are, to a certain extent, con- 

 stantly changing; and thus the study of them has, 

 in this circumstance, as well as in their manifold 

 abundance, a source of perpetual variety. Insects, 

 also, Avhich are plentiful one year, fiequently become 

 scarce, or disappear altogether, the next — a fact 

 strikingly illustrated by the uncommon alnindance, 

 in 1826 and 1827, of the seven-spot lady-bird {Coc- 

 cinella septempvnctafa), in the vicinity of London, 

 though during the two succeeding summers this 

 insect was comparatively scarce, while the small two- 

 spot lady-bird [CoccincUa bipimctata) was plen- 

 tiful. 



There is, perhaps, no situation in which the lover 

 of nature and the observer of animal life may not 

 find opportunities for increasing his store of facts. It 

 is told of a state prisoner under a cruel and rigorous 

 despotism, that when he was excluded from all com- 

 merce with mankind, and was shut out from books, 

 he took an interest and found consolation in the visits 

 of a spider; and there is no imi)rol)ability in the 

 story. The operations of that jicrsecuted creature 

 are among the most extraordinary exhibitions of me- 

 chanical ingenuity; and a daily watching of the 

 •workings of its instinct would beget admiration in 

 a rightly constituted mind. The poor prisoner had 

 abundant leisure for the speculations in which the 

 spider's web would enchain liis understanding. We 

 have all of us at one period or other of our lives, been 

 struck with some singular evidence of contrivance in 

 the economy of insects, which we have seen with our 



* Stephen's Illustrations, vol. i.. p. 72, note. 



