ENTOMOLOGICAL MAGAZINE 



JANUARY, 183.3. 



Art. XIV. — On the Want of Analogy between the Sensations 

 of Insects and our own. By the Rev. C. S. Bird, M.A. 

 F.L.S. late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, 



[Read in the Clarendon, Oxford, before the British Society for the Advancement 

 of Science, June 20, 1832.] 



It may not, perhaps, be thought inconsistent with the 

 objects of the British Society for the Advancement of Science, 

 if a few observations be made, tending to remove, or at least 

 weaken, a very popular objection to the study of Entomology. 

 Were this neglected, but beautiful field of nature more widely 

 cultivated — could the students of Entomology be brought to 

 bear any comparison in number with those of Botany, it is im- 

 possible to say to what extent science in general might ulti- 

 mately be benefited. Who can tell what discoveries are in 

 store, and only waiting till the foot of some fortunate Entomo- 

 logist shall explore some untrodden tract? Need we call to 

 rtiind how deeply Medicine is already indebted to what is com- 

 monly called the Spanish Fly, Cantharis Vesicatoria ? Who 

 knows how the debt may yet be increased ? Need we recur 

 to the Philosophical Transactions, a century and a half ago, 

 in order to draw encouragement from the example of Ray ? If 

 he could elicit from the common ant what marty celebrated 

 writers contend is an acid sui generis, the formic, who can 

 predict what other properties, which now lurk beneath the 

 lovely exterior of the innumerable insects around us, may yet 

 enrifch that most wonderful of modern sciences, chemistry ? 



NO. II. VOL. I. p 



