EXTERNAL ANATOMY OF INSECTS. 719 



that I must have discovered and described every part 

 and every variation of every part of the crust of an insect. 

 But when you go on to reflect what a comparatively 

 small number of these creatures have fallen under my 

 examination, and in those, after all my laborious and 

 painful researches, from my limited faculties and other 

 imperfections of our common nature, how much will 

 probably have eluded my notice, you may conclude that 

 thousands of facts still remain concealed to reward the 

 patient assiduity of future investigators. Such are the 

 immensity and variety of the woi'ks of the Creator in 

 this department, that it would require a long life, and 

 fill volumes upon volumes, to discover and give a de- 

 scription of all the peculiarities of structure of the insects 

 that are already known ; and could all that exist a be so 

 studied and explained in full detail, the library that the 

 Calif Omar ordered to be burned at Alexandria could 

 scarcely have contained more books than would be re- 

 quired to receive the results. But " who is sufficient 

 for these things 5 ?" This is a question that the most able 

 and most experienced physiologist must often feel dis- 

 posed to put to himself when, lost in the intricate laby- 

 rinth of the works of his Maker, he sees all things ar- 

 ranged, " wheel within wheel," in an order that he can 

 only partially unravel, instead of tracing the " regular 

 confusion" through all its windings. But glimpses of 

 light, and points of irradiation, here and there discover 

 to him fragments of the truth of things, and such vestiges 



» I have heard it stated upon good authority that 40,000 species 

 of insects are already known, as preserved in collections. How great, 

 then, must be the number existing in this whole globe ! 



b 2 Cor. ii. 16. 



