METHODS OF PROTECTION AMONG ANIMALS. 163 
as many now are, to realize intellectually, whether or not 
we are living and moving and having our being in an 
essentially divine universe-—that is to say, in a universe that 
in its final principle is morally trustworthy, and that is more 
or less interpretable by man, in an exertion of theistic or 
thee ie , Haste 
religious faith, as well as of physical faith.”* 
DIscUSSION. 
The CuatrMan.—Is it your pleasure, ladies and gentlemen, to 
return thanks to Dr. Kidd for his communication ? (Applause.) 
I think we have listened to an exceedingly interesting and 
graphic account of the modes of protection, which are often the 
same as those used for supplying the needs of animals from the 
lowest to the highest order. We might often wish that some of 
those forms were not so well furnished with means of protection— 
for instance, when Dr. Kidd came to the question of the insect 
tribe, bugs, fleas, mosquitoes, cockroaches, and other forms which 
infest hot countries, and which require curtains to keep them from 
persecuting unhappy individuals sleeping under them, we might 
wish that Nature had not been so very adaptive to their wants for 
the purpose of perpetuating those noxious pests. But I suppose 
we must feel that every animal has its use. We cannot always 
see what their use is. We could very well, for instance, do with- 
out some of those I have mentioned, and such forms as scorpions, 
or flocks of those destructive insects, the locusts; and I hope as 
civilization extends over the regions where those animals seem to 
multiply, and to develop to an extraordinary extent, that man will 
be able, if not to exterminate them, at any rate certainly to 
reduce their number for the benefit of mankind generally. In the 
vast majority of cases that Dr. Kidd has enumerated this evening 
I think we must admit that we see most clear evidence of design, 
both for protection and for the supply and support of the animal 
life. 
* Giffard Lectures for 1895-6, Series 2, p. 2. 
M 
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