532 [ Assemble 



portance and it has occupied about three hundred distinguished wri- 

 ters, including Aristotle, &c. 



Swamraerdam gives to insects an equal if not superior dignity to 

 the large animals. He says, " while we dissect with care the latter, 

 we are filled with wonder at the elegant disposition of their parts, and 

 to what a height is our astonishment raised when we discover all these 

 parts arranged in the least insect in the same regular manner. Not- 

 withstanding the smallness of ants, nothing hinders us from preferring 

 them to the largest animals, if we consider either their unwearied dili- 

 gence, their wonderful powers, or their inimitable propensity to labor. 

 Their amazing love to their young is still more unparalleled among 

 the largest animals — they not only carry them to places where they 

 can get food, but if by accident they are killed and cut to pieces, the 

 parents will carry the pieces away in their arms. Who can show such 

 examples among the larger animals, which are dignified with the title 

 of perfect ! 



Barbut thought that the antennae of insects were their organs of hear- 

 ing — however this may be doubted by entomologists, it is evident that 

 they enjoy the faculty of smelling, allhough the seat of the organ is 

 not agreed upon. The celebrated Latreille believes that it is in the 

 antennae. Most insects have two eyes, the gyrmus has 4, scorpion 

 6, spider 8, and scolopendra three. Insects have no eyebrows, the 

 external tunic resembles water crystals. Lieuwenhoek fonnd 800 

 such glasses in the eyes of a common fly ; Pugett found in that of a 

 butterfly 18,323 such lenses. Their organs of breathing, called ^pira- 

 cula^ are curiously situated on each side of each segment of the ab- 

 domen. There are no hermaphrodites among them. There is a 

 very great singularity in the mode of propagation of the Aphis. A 

 female when once impregnated continues to have young ones as long 

 as to the fifth or sixth generation, and then is impregnated again ; the 

 male insects, like hawks, are smaller than the females. The Coccus 

 and the Oniscus no sooner bring forth their young than these children 

 fall upon their mothers and eat them up. The Sphex kills the cater- 

 pillar of a moth, buries it in the eartj;i, and there deposits her eggs in it. 



