8 INTRODUCTORY LETTER. 
he stands unrivalled as an architect, and that his buildings are without a 
parallel among the works of the inferior orders of animals. He would be 
ofa different opinion did he attend to the history of insects: he would 
find that many of them have been architects from time immemorial; that 
they have had their houses divided into various apartments, and containing 
staircases, gigantic arches, domes, colonnades, and the like ; nay, that even 
tunnels ave excavated by them so immense, compared with their own size, 
as to be twelve times bigger than that of Sir M. I. Brunel under the 
Thames.! The modern fine lady, who prides herself on the lustre and 
beauty of the scarlet hangings which adorn the stately walls of her drawing- 
room, or the carpets that cover its floor, fancying that nothing so rich and 
splendid was ever seen before, and pitying her vulgar ancestors, who were 
doomed to unsightly white-wash and rushes, is ignorant all the while, that 
before she or her ancestors were in existence, and even before the boasted 
Tyrian dye was discovered, a little insect had known how to hang the 
walls of its cell with tapestry of a scarlet more brilliant than any her rooms 
can exhibit, and that others daily weave silken carpets, both in tissue and 
texture infinitely superior to those she so much admires. No female 
ornament is more prized and costly than lace, the invention and fabrication 
of which seems the exclusive claim of the softer sex. But even here they 
have been anticipated by these little industrious creatures, who often de- 
fend their helpless chrysalis by a most singular covering, and as beautiful 
as singular, of lace.8 Other arts have been ‘equally forestalled by these 
creatures. What vast importance is attached to the invention of paper ! 
For nearly six thousand years one of our commonest insects has known 
how to make and apply it to its purposes‘; and even pasteboard, superior 
in substance and polish to any we can produce, is manufactured by 
another. We imagine that nothing short of human intellect can be equal 
to the construction of a diving-bell or an air-pump — yet a spider is in the 
daily habit of using the one, and, what is more, one exactly similar in 
principle to ours, but more ingeniously contrived; by means of which she 
resides unwetted in the bosom of the water, and procures the necessary 
supplies of air by a much more simple process than our alternating buckets® 
—and the caterpillar of a little writ knows how to imitate the other, 
producing a vacuum, when necessary for its purposes, without any piston 
beside its own body.? If we think with wonder of the populous cities 
which have employed the united labours of man for many ages to bring 
them to their full extent, what shall we say to the white ants, which 
require only a few months to build a metropolis capable of containing an 
infinitely greater number of inhabitants than even imperial Nineveh, Baby- 
lon, Rome, or Pekin, in all their glory ? 
That insects should thus have forestalled us in our inventions ought to 
urge us to pay a closer attention to them and their ways than we have 
hitherto done, since it is not at all improbable that the result would be 
many useful hints for the improvement of our arts and manufactures, and 
1 The white ants. 2 Megachile Papaveris. 
5 The late ingenious Mr. Paul, of Harlston in Norfolk, under the bark of a tree 
discovered a considerable portion of a fabric of this kind, which from its amplitude 
must have been destined for some other purpose. 
4 The common wasp. 5 Chartergus nidulans, 
6 Argyroneta aquatica, 7 Tinea serratella L. 
