COLLOQUIA ENTOMOLOGICA. 95 



perhaps carried on the javehn's point twenty feet under 

 ground — it's no exaggeration — don't smile; — what would be the 

 man's feeling ? I ask, what would be your feeling, Moffy, eh? 

 What would you do ? 



Ent, Die ! 



Erro. Yesj perhaps so. Yes, you certainly would. Then 

 how awful must be the pain to a creature whose intense 

 vitality supported it even in such a horrible situation. Life 

 it certainly retains; but what a life, futile, indistinct, false, 

 feverish — none of your smiles — writhing convulsively on a si- 

 milar instrument ; yet from some cause, at present unknown to 

 us, capable of withstanding death — that is, immediate death : 

 but death must follow at no great distance of time, embittered 

 by pain and hunger, and in its most awful forms ; sometimes 

 sinking exhausted, after hours or days spent in struggling for 

 liberty; sometimes, from numbness and inertness, the disrup- 

 tion of its vital parts being followed by a total loss of sensation. 



Ent. Roey ! 



Erro, Yes, excess of pain having worn out the nerves : 

 sometimes from loss of blood ; which you must often have 

 remarked on the paper where the wretched sufferer has turned 

 round and round in agony, but mostly from 



Ent. — steam — But really, Roey, excuse me ; you make but 

 a poor hand at defending a cause against your conscience. You 

 would never do for the law : why, you have said nothing, 

 literally nothing — smoke, mist, which rising before the sunlight 

 of truth requires not even my weak breath to disperse ; if, 

 under circumstances which, you have very unnecessarily 

 laboured to prove, would kill a man, an insect not only lives, 

 but, struggling for liberty, whirls at the pin-head like a 

 teetotum, and you are aware, although you have not advanced 

 it, will eat and drink as heartily as usual ; and, when liberated, 

 will immediately pursue its customary occupations of sport, 

 love, or industry ! Why, how, in the name of fortune, do you 

 make out any analogy ? 



Erro. Don't stop, Moffy. 



Ent. There is, then, some decided difference somewhere in 

 organization : where is it ? What is sensation, or rather where 

 does it originate ? 



Erro. In the brain. 



Ent. In the brain — right. Now, in vertebrates, the brain 



