NATURAL HISTORY OF INSECTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



" Each crawling insect holds a rank 



Important in the plan of Him who fram'd 

 This scale of beings ; holds a rank, which lost 

 Would break the chain, and leave a gap, 

 That Nature's self would rue." 



By a gradual progress in a survey of animated nature, we at 

 last come to a part which can never be fully investigated. The 

 different species of insects are too numerous, and many of them 

 too much concealed from our view, to permit us to be acquaint- 

 ed with their history. The larger and more conspicuous objects 

 of creation, whether animate or inanimate, admit of obvious dis- 

 tinctions ; but when we descend to the inferior classes and more 

 minute parts of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, the variety 

 multiplies so fast as to preclude all possibility of describing in 

 detail. 



Nature descends gradually in her progress, from man to the 

 quadruped, and afterwards to the volatile race, from these to 

 fishes, and afterwards to reptiles and insects ; and all the inves- 

 tigations of naturalists have not yet been able to determine the 

 boundaries of the world of life. Philosophical inquiry has de- 

 scended to the order of zoophites, without being able to agree 

 whether they ought to be considered as a superior kind of vege- 

 tables, or the lowest order of animated nature. 



Of all the classes of animal being, insects appear to us the 

 most imperfectly formed ; and, if they be considered in relation 

 to man, and to the necessities or pleasures of human life, they 

 will in this respect sink in the comparison with the larger tribes 

 of Nature. The bee, the silk-worm, the cochineal-fly, and the 

 eantharides, render signal services to our species ; but multi- 

 tudes of others are either totally unserviceable or prejudicial to 

 us. Even in those countries where noxious animals of the large 

 kinds have been extirpated by the repeated efforts of a constantly 

 increasing population, the insect tribes still maintain their ground, 

 and are often unwelcome intruders ; but in uncultivated and 

 thinly peopled regions, their annoyance and devastations are 

 terrible and almost incredible. In Lapland, in many parts of 

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