106 BIRD ON THE 



The objection alluded to is this — that Entomology cannot 

 be studied without making a collection of insects, and that 

 such a collection cannot be made without involving much 

 cruelty. The formei- of these assertions may be allowed, but 

 the latter may fairly be questioned. It is of the greatest con- 

 sequence to question it, because it is in the mouth of every 

 one who has paid no attention to the subject, and because it 

 rises most readily to the lips of those, the goodness of whose 

 hearts, and the warmth and simplicity of whose feelings, render 

 them the most desirable converts, being the very persons who 

 would engage in this delightful pursuit with the greatest enthu- 

 siasm if once converted. In self-defence too, it is absolutely 

 necessary that an Entomologist, who lays claim to as much 

 benevolence as others, should shun the questionable shape in 

 which the objection presents itself to his mind at least. For 

 my own part, I will claim more for the Entomologist, and will 

 assert that his acquaintance with insects will increase his 

 benevolence towards them, and will make him the last person 

 in the world who would grudge the trouble of putting a spider 

 or an earwig out of the window rather than crush it to death, 

 or pass by the commonest fly or beetle floating on a stream 

 without reaching out a stick to save it. 



The charge of cruelty wholly rests on an implied assump- 

 tion that we are capable of judging by outward symptoms of 

 the sensations of insects, and that they occupy such a place in 

 the animal kingdom as to oblige us to suppose that their sen- 

 sations are like our own under like circumstances. Both these 

 positions I deny to be tenable. I shall endeavour to prove, by 

 popular arguments, unconnected with any inquiries into the 

 anatomy of insects," that the outward symptoms, by which it 

 is hastily judged that pain is felt, are referable, if to any sen- 

 sation analogous to ours, only to the instinct of escaping 

 from restraint unaccompanied by pain ; and, moreover, that 

 there is so broad a line to be drawn between the lower part of 

 the animal creation and the higher as to make it extremely 

 doubtful whether there is any analogy whatever in their sen- 

 sation. As my attempt to draw this line is new, at least to 

 myself, I shall begin with that. 



Few persons, comparatively speaking, are aware how diffi- 



» Tliis subject has been ably argued in our last article, p. !) i, cf seq. — Ed. 



