SENSATIONS OF INSECTS. 171 



"If in any case an insect feel pain, nothing, we 

 should imagine, could call forth the feeling more than 

 the act of passing a pin through its thorax, a part 

 which we know to be peculiarly sensitive. It is, in 

 fact, this ver)'^ act of ^dolence, equivalent to spearing 

 a wild boar or a salmon, which is most revolting to 

 observers ; and if their compassion can be shown to 

 be misplaced in this case, they will hardly, I believe, 

 appeal to any other," 



The reverend author, after mentioning the quies- 

 cent state of a moth when pierced, thus continues : — 

 " The fluttering is the symptom, the only symptom, 

 by which people in general are convinced that an 

 insect is suffering ; but here there was no fluttering. 

 And then, to shew that even when it flutters, we are 

 not hastily to infer pain, I have suddenly and ab- 

 ruptly touched a leg, or some other part of its body, 

 but not so as to wound it, and alarmed the moth, 

 after which it has began to flutter, and finding the 

 restraint of the pin, has never ceased to flutter more 

 and more, until I destroyed it. I conclude, therefore, 

 that the \4olent struggles which excite so much pity 

 in us before we know their cause, are merely the 

 effect of alarm." * 



To the accuracy of the facts here recorded, I am 

 enabled to bear testimony from my own personal 

 observation. On one occasion, last summer, a pret- 

 * Entomological Magazine, No. ii. 



