Insects. 1437 



feeling, for there is nothing whatever to warrant, but everything to confute such an as- 

 sumption. Are the old hacknied instances of moths (when asleep) pierced upon a tree 

 appealed to? We have already answered them and shown that, unless this can 

 always be done with the same result, (and I may here mention, that I have never been 

 able to accomplish the feat myself) it proves not one jot in favour of the present argu- 

 ment. Are other facts, equally dubious and equally isolated, brought forward? It is 

 at least a presumptuous thing to assume a grand law of Nature (and one of the great- 

 est, in the Animal Kingdom, which we can conceive) from a few solitary facts,— 

 " facts '' which, were they solved, might probably be accounted for in a variety of ways, 

 without conceding to so small and insufficient a " proof " what anatomy shows to be 

 impossible, and what common reason and common sense, when looking on the subject 

 in a broad light (with reference to the other departments of the Zoological Creation) 

 alike pronounce to be, in the highest degree, unsatisfactory. — T. V. Wollaston ; Jesus 

 College, Cambridge, June 30th, 1846. 



Sensibility of Insects. — The question concerning the degree of feeling which in- 

 sects possess has lately been touched upon in the ' Zoologist.' Now, as far as I have 

 been enabled to observe, they certainly appear " apathique," as Lamarck calls them. 

 Indeed, to suppose them endowed with feeling, involves considerations truly shocking 

 to humanity. Whoever thinks of the caterpillar devoured by parasites, of the larva, 

 &c. imprisoned by certain Hymenoptera, as food for their young, of the ferocity of com- 

 bats protracted by tenacity of life (Zool. 1242) will see at once that if insects can feel, 

 there is involved an amount of suffering perfectly unparalleled in the other depart- 

 ments of animated nature, and in my humble opinion, utterly discordant with the 

 general system of the universe. To superficial thinkers, there may to be sure seem 

 something contradictory in the idea of an apathetic animal ; capable of feeling them- 

 selves, they infer that every living animal must feel likewise. This is just as logical 

 as if some insect should indignantly maintain that man, on the same principle, must 

 be able to fly, although devoid of organs for that function. Has any one pointed out 

 nerves of sensation (not touch) in an insect ? We often hear it said that insects feel in 

 proportion as much as we, but no one could even tell me in proportion to what ? To 

 the range of their perceptions ? — their rank in the system of Nature ? — their degree of 

 individualization ? — or if we may venture so uncharitable a surmise, not surely to their 

 size ? Some naturalists have called the invertebrate animals somnambulists, i. e., go- 

 ing through a certain round of actions without consciousness. Certainly they are 

 little individualized, the species is everything, — the single insect nothing ; indeed how 

 could the ant and bee communities exist under other circumstances? Mr. Turner's 

 statement (Zool. 1342) of insects transfixed, only struggling at certain times, seems 

 to me a most conclusive argument on our side. The insensibility of insects can, how- 

 ever, be no apology for killing or injuring them, except for scientific or economic pur- 

 poses. — J. W. Slater ; Fairfield, June 6th, 1846. 



Treatment of Insects when captured. — I may add to the remarks on killing insects 

 in your last number (Zool. 1 334), that I have found the larger Lepidoptera are quickly 

 and effectually deprived of life by placing them in a paper cone, and exposing them 

 thus enclosed for a few moments to the steam of boiling water. I fold a piece of 

 strong paper in the form commonly known as a sugar-paper, and place it with the 

 moth, &c. enclosed, under the cover of a kettle or other vessel in which steam is co- 

 piously rising : its struggles are quickly over, and it is immediately ready for the set- 

 ting board. Hemiptera, Hymenoptera, and Diptera are speedily killed by enclosure in 



