INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 257 



water that is full of larvae pure and without any stench, 

 while that which is deprived of them will continue stink- 

 ing*. 



Benefits equally great are rendered by the wood-de- 

 stroying insects. We indeed, in this country, who find 

 use for ten times more timber than we produce, could 

 dispense with their services ; but to estimate them at their 

 proper value, as affecting the great system of nature, 

 we should transport ourselves to tropical climes, or to 

 those under the temperate zones, where millions of acres 

 are covered by one interminable forest. How is it that 

 these untrodden regions, where thousands of their giant 

 inhabitants fall victims to the slow ravages of time, or the 

 more sudden operations of lightning and hurricanes, 

 should yet exhibit none of those scenes of ruin and deso- 

 lation that might have been expected, but are always 

 found with the verdant characters of youth and beauty? 

 It is to the insect world that this great charge of keeping 

 the habitations of the Dryads in perpetual freshness has 

 been committed. A century almost would elapse before 

 the removal from the face of nature of the mighty ruins 

 of one of the hard- wooded tropical trees, by the mere in- 

 fluence of the elements. But how speedy its decomposi- 

 tion when their operations are assisted by insects ! As 

 soon as a tree is fallen, one tribe attack its bark b , which 

 is often the most indestructible part of it; and thousands 



a CEcon. Nat. Amcen. Ac. ii. 50. Stillingfleet's Tracts, 122. 



b Maupertuis observes, that in Lapland he saw many birch-trees 

 lying on the ground, which had probably been there for a very long 

 time, with the bark entire, though the wood was decayed. Hence we 

 may probably infer, that in that country there are few or nons of 

 the bark-boring insects. 



VOL. I. s 



