INSECTS* 22j 



In order to bring their young to perfection. In 

 place of these, the all-directing Power has endowed 

 each species with the astonishing faculty of being 

 able to discover what substance is fitted to afford 

 the most proper food for its young ; though such 

 food is, for the most part, so totally different from 

 that which the parent itself could eat as that, in 

 many cases, it would prove a deadly poison to it* 

 Some of them attach their eggs to the bark, or 

 insert them into the leaves of trees and other vege- 

 table substances ; others form nests,: which they store 

 with insects or caterpillars that will attain the exact 

 state in which they are proper food for their young 

 when they shall awaken into life j others bury them 

 in the bodies of other insects ; and others fall upon 

 astonishing contrivances to convey their eggs into 

 the body, or the internal viscera of larger animals. 

 Some drop their eggs into the water, in which they 

 themselves would soon be destroyed, as if they 

 foresaw that their progeny, in its first state of exist- 

 ence, could only subsist in that element. In short, 

 the variety of contrivances that are adopted by- 

 insects to insure the subsistence of their young, 

 when they shall come into life, are beyond enume- 

 ration. It may, however, with great truth, be said 

 that all the means they adopt are so perfectly 

 adapted to answer the purpose intended as to dis- 

 cover a degree of knowledge that leaves the boast- 

 ed wisdom of man at an infinite distance behind. 



From the eggs of all insects proceed what are 

 called larva, grubs, or caterpillars. These consist 

 of a long body, covered with a soft tender skin. 





