MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 465 



merely sensitive ? When attacked by strange bees, they have recourse 

 to a similar manoeuvre ; only in this case they make but narrow apertures, 

 sufficient for a single bee to pass through. — Pliny affirms that a sick 

 bear will provoke a hive of bees to attack him in order to let him blood.* 

 What will you say, if humble-bees have recourse to a similar manoeuvre ? 

 It is related to me by Dr. Leach from the communications of Mr. Daniel 

 Bydder — an indefatigable and well-informed collector of insects, and 

 observer of their proceedings — that Bombus" terrestris, when laboring 

 under Acariasis from the numbers of a small mite (^Gamasus GymnopterO' 

 rum) that infest it, will take its station in an ant-hill ; where beginning to 

 scratch, and kick, and make a disturbance, the ants immediately come out 

 to attack it, and falling foul of the mites, they destroy or carry them all 

 off; when the bee, thus delivered from its enemies, takes its flight. 



In this long detail, the first idea that will, I should hope, strike the 

 mind of every thinking being, is the truth of the Psalmist's observations — 

 that the tender mercies of God are over all his works. Not the least and 

 most insignificant of his creatures is, we see, deprived of his paternal care 

 and attention ; none are exiled from his all-directing providence. Why 

 then should man, the head of the visible creation, for whom all the infe- 

 rior animals were created and endowed ; for whose well-being, in some 

 sense, all these wonderful creatures with their miraculous instincts, whose 

 history I am giving you, were put in action, — why should he ever doubt, 

 if he uses his powers and faculties rightly, that his Creator will provide 

 him with what is necessary for his present state ? — Why should he imagine 

 that a Being, whose very essence is Love, unless he compels him by his 

 own willful and obdurate wickedness, will ever cut him off from his care 

 and providence ? 



Another idea that upon this occasion must force itself into our mind is, 

 that nothing is made in vain. When we find that so many seemingly 

 trivial variations in the color, clothing, form, structure, motions, habits, 

 and economy of insects are of very great importance to them, we may safely 

 conclude that the peculiarities in all these respects, of which we do not 

 yet know the use, are equally necessary ; and we may almost say, revers- 

 ing the words of our Saviour, that not a hair is given to them without our 

 Heavenly Father. 



I am, &.C. 



> Hist. Nat. 1. viii. c. 36. 2 j^pi^. **. e. 2. K. 



