INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



Chapter 



NTRODUCTION. 



It can never be too strongly impressed upon a mind 

 anxious for the acquisition of knowledge, that the 

 commonest things by which we are surrounded are 

 deserving of minute and careful attention. The 

 most profound investigations of Philosophy are 

 necessarily connected with the ordinary circum- 

 stances of our being, and of the world in which 

 our every-day life is spent. With regard to our own 

 existence, the pulsation of the heart, the act of respi- 

 ration, the voluntary movement of our limbs, the 

 condition of sleep, are among the most ordinary 

 operations of our nature ; and yet how long were the 

 wisest of men struggling with dark and bewildering 

 speculations before they could offer any thing like a 

 satisfactory solution of these phenomena, and how 

 far are we still from an accurate and complete know- 

 ledge of them! The science of Meteorology, which 

 attempts to explain to us the philosophy of matters 

 constantly before our eyes, as dew, mist, and rain, 

 is dependent for its illustrations upon a know- 

 ledge of the most complicated facts, such as the 

 influence of heat and electricity upon the air; and 

 that knowledge is at present so imperfect, that even 

 these cornmon occurrences of the weather, which 

 VOL. ly. 1 



