2238 Insects. 



instinctive knowledge on the part of the gnats as to my being somewhat indigestible for 

 them ; but both these suppositions were overturned by the fact of this one having once 

 condescended to try my tap. These, however, are guesses, and I should not have sent 

 them, therefore, to a journal for recording facts, were it not for a hope that they may 

 elicit other facts either in disproof or confirmation of my theories, and may posssibly 

 serve as hints to future observers on this interesting subject as to how and what to ob- 

 serve. — W. S. Lewis ; Trinity College, Cambridge, August 19, 1848. 



Complexity in the Condition of Animals, by Jonathan Couch, Esq., F.L.S., fyc* — 

 In studying the ordinary condition of living creatures, it appears obvious, that how- 

 ever numerous their natural endowments may be, no single one of them is capable of 

 attaining the highest excellence of its nature by its own unaided powers ; and that 

 mentally, as well as bodily, it is not to the advantage of the race that they should pur- 

 sue the end of their existence in a solitary state. 



In the highest class of beings, whatever be the advantage which the mind sighs 

 after, the want is felt to belong more to the mental than to the physical nature ; and 

 by a sacrifice of some conveniences on the one hand, and by industry on the other, it 

 is possible that man may advance through the stages of growth, from youth to age, 

 unaided and alone. But such is not the case, with regard even to the bodily facul- 

 ties, in several classes of animals of a lower rank in the scale of existence ; there are 

 some that, to cursory examination, appear to occupy an anomalous position, forming 

 exceptions to the regular course of 'Nature. And yet a deeper inquiry shows that by 

 such a conclusion we give proof of our imperfect apprehension of the order manifest 

 in creation. We suppose the variation to be an interruption of a determined scheme ; 

 and, by this misapprehension, presume to conclude that the departure from what we 

 judge the proper line of proceeding is a defect in Nature. 



These observations apply, in an especial manner, to some remarkable circumstances 

 which occur in the changes that take place in the course of transition of some families 

 of insects from one of their forms to another. These phenomena are so different from 

 the ordinary course of Nature in kindred classes, that they excite doubts as to the 

 truth of facts which observers teach us ; and when the accuracy of the observations 

 are established beyond question, it produces the inquiry, — what reason can be assigned 

 why such caprice has been manifested in creatures which, to our views, might have 

 fulfilled the little duties of their existence in a much simpler manner ? 



In the latter question there is a tendency to an inquiry after final causes. This, 

 however excellent in itself, would, in our present state of knowledge, more frequently 

 mislead or disappoint than instruct the student of Nature. And therefore, without 

 attempting to pronounce that there is an intentional conformity between the natural 

 or bodily deficiencies of these lower creatures, and the modes of supplying them in 

 those of the higher orders ; it yet appears justifiable to adduce them as instances of an 

 analogy which creatures of one family, however remote in the order of existence, are 

 found to bear to those of other families. And these links, even when the closer bands 

 of affinity cannot reach them, yet assimilate the apparent discord into an harmonious 

 whole. 



Our idea of an animal may be taken from man himself; who in his passage from 



* Reprinted from the Report for 1847 of the Penzance Natural-History and An- 

 tiquarian Society, 



