4582 Insects. 



a beetle, Lacanus parallellopipedus, and after immersing it for a few- 

 moments in scalding water, it being apparently quite dead, I pinned 

 it to a piece of cork, and placed it in an open drawer to dry ; two days 

 after, missing it from the cork, I searched high and low, but could not 

 find it, until at last it was found crawling away, with the pin still in it, 

 at a distance of several yards from the drawer. Could we, or any other 

 warm-blooded animal, have performed this, after a similar infliction ? 

 Again, it is well known that some species of moths may be pinned to 

 a tree while at rest during the day, and appear to know nothing of the 

 matter, for aught we can tell from any movement they make, until their 

 usual period of flight arrives, when vain efforts are made to regain their 

 liberty, and the only apparent inconvenience is the being Ji.ved to the 

 spot (see Introduction to Westwood and Humphries' ' British Butter- 

 flies,' &c). I have myself witnessed similar instances, though at this 

 moment T forget the species.* I have also seen a hornet {Vespa crabo) 

 severed at the junction of the thorax and abdomen during a voracious 

 repast on a pear, but this injury did not for some minutes appear to 

 interrupt its enjoyment of the meal, and even when aware of its loss 

 the only effect seemed to be the prevention of flight by the absence of 

 the natural balance of its body. Is it, then, agreeable to our know- 

 ledge and ideas of the effect of pain to suppose that if, in any of these 

 instances, there had been felt what would certainly have been our sen- 

 sations under such injuries, they would have taken it so quietly and 

 unconcernedly, and with scarcely more apparent feeling than would 

 have been visible in a vegetable ? and would not the physical effect of 

 such maltreatment on ourselves have been to produce speedy, if not 

 instantaneous, death ? and if, therefore, we find injuries and violence 

 to their parts producing on insects and warm-blooded animals such 

 very dissimilar results, shall we not be justified in concluding that their 

 feelings on these occasions are also of a very dissimilar nature ? — that 

 is, if a total dissimilarity of organization produces, as far as direct 

 evidence goes, totally different effects, may we not reasonably con- 

 clude that the difference is kept up even as to those effects of the pre- 

 cise amount of which we have no direct evidence ? there appears to 

 me, at all events, a strong presumption in favour of such a con- 

 clusion. 



Again, there are some parts of our own bodies that are sensitive in 

 very different degrees from other parts ; and some, again, such as those 



* I have just had a striking instance of this with a number of small specimens of 

 P. Popnli.-O. P.-C; December 10, 1854. 



