70 SUPPLEMENT ON 



daring and troublesome inroads of insect invaders. His self- 

 created rank as lord of the creation affords him no protection 

 from their insolent attacks. They pay no respect to his 

 aristocracy; and the godlike glance, at which the higher 

 animals are said (with what truth, God knows) to quail, 

 cannot scare their formidable minuteness. They invade his 

 dominions without fear, conquer, and colonize. Their ex- 

 pulsion is always difficult, sometimes impossible ; and to 

 prevent their irruptions, often calls forth his most strenuous 

 efforts, his utmost skill, and his unwearied vigilance. But 

 he may console himself with the reflection that all other 

 animals suffer in a similar manner — that insects themselves 

 are the prey of other insects, which feed upon their sub- 

 stance, imbibe the streamlets of their life, and occupy 

 the interior cavities of their body, thus illustrating, even 

 in infinite littleness, the inscrutable law of perpetual de- 

 struction, and perpetual reproduction. 



Though the aliments of insects are, for the most part, in a 

 liquid form — though the majority of species are sustained 

 by the juices or fluids of plants and animals, and thus find 

 both food and drink together, yet some are seen to eat and 

 drink at separate times. The fondness of locusts for drink- 

 ing, was not unknown to the ancients. They seem to seek, 

 with their antennas, the drops of dew which hang upon the 

 leaves, and when they have found them, drink them up im- 

 mediately. Bees, ants, and other insects, exhibit a similar 

 taste. 



Of the organs of nutrition, and their various modifications, 

 enough will be found in the subsequent portions of the text, 

 &c., in treating of the different orders and families. We 

 shall only add a word, on the mode in which nutrition pro- 

 bably takes place. There is no doubt of its being performed 

 through the agency of the aliments, which furnish to the 

 different organs not only the means of reparation, but of 



