112 BIRD ON THE 



to the ground by their own entrails, yet alive, and likely to 

 linger long in that state. Can we believe that they would be 

 endued with such vitality if their sensibility were not dimi- 

 nished in proportion? To shew how fitting it is that we 

 should make the right inference in such a case with regard to 

 the Divine benevolence, I may be permitted to mention that 

 I had a friend, who, by making the wrong one, actually be- 

 came, for a time, an avowed sceptic. It was strange to me 

 that he should allow his uncertainty with respect to the 

 feelings of insects to be set in comparison with, and even to 

 supersede, his certainty with respect to the goodness of the 

 Deity ; but the fact proves how compelled a reflecting person 

 must be to adopt one or other alternative. I might, in order 

 to strengthen my argument, refer to the apparently cruel 

 economy of the flies which belong to the IchneumonidcB and 

 other innumerable Hymenopterous families, and Dipterous 

 ones too, which deposit their eggs in the caterpillars of moths.* 

 How often do we find such a caterpillar '(and it is not con- 

 fined to such only), which lives not for itself, but solely for its 

 voracious tenants, which devour its substance, sparing only 

 its vitals for a last meal when it shall have come to complete 

 maturity and ceased to eat. Nay, according to Mr. Newman's 

 recent observations," these tenants may themselves, at the 



^ Paley (in his Natural Theology, I believe) observes, with respect to the 

 destruction of cattle for our food, that, if it does not shock us that they should 

 die at all, if we do not go the length of demanding immortality for them, it 

 should be pleasing to our feelings that they die as they do, in the speediest 

 mariner, in full possession of health, after living an agreeable life, during which 

 they were plentifully provided with the best sustenance ; the alternative being, 

 if there were any alternative (for in general they are produced, as well as sup- 

 ported, for the purpose of yielding us food), that they would pass a half-starved 

 existence, and endure a lingering termination to it by disease or hunger. Similar 

 reasoning will apply to the breeding of insects with a view to the cabinet — they 

 are gainers by it. The larvae or caterpillars, which are in that stage of the quadri- 

 partite existence of insects, which is in some cases the only eating stage, and in all 

 cases the principal one, are enabled to feed day and night in captivity, whilst in 

 the open air the majority of them feed only in the night ; and they are protected 

 from their indefatigable pursuers, the ichneumons, which would deposit their 

 eggs in them, and (on the supposition of their feeling, which I am only granting 

 for the sake of argument) would render their life a burthen to them, and termi- 

 nate it even at an earlier stage than the entomologist would. 



' This remarkable discovery was published in Mr. Loudon's Magazine of 

 Natural History, No. XXV. p. 252. Our readers will find it well worth pe- 

 rusal. — Ed. 



