38 



that's it ; 



tbe Arabs. The food of John the 

 Baptist was "locusts and wild 

 honey." Several kinds of insects 

 are used as medicines. They 

 afford food to the fowls of the 

 air, the beasts of the earth, and 

 the fishes of the waters. The 

 swallow (Hirundo rustica) 3, 

 devours thousands daily ; the 

 great ant- 

 eater (Myr- 

 mecophag a 

 > jubata) , 4, 

 devours mil- 

 lions of 

 them. The 

 trout (Sal/mo 

 fario), 5, pursues them with the 

 swiftness of an arrow. Experi- 

 ments have been made upon the 

 feeding of trout, from which it 



213. 



has resulted that those fed upon 

 insects have thriven much better 

 than those fed with worms or 

 minnows. Insects also assist to 

 purify waters, by consuming 

 decaying animal and vegetable 

 matter ; they also contribute to 

 the purity of the air, by the 

 motions of their wings, and by 

 eating putrefying substances. But 

 the greatest service, probably, 

 rendered to man by the insect 

 tribes consists in this — that, in 

 their frequent visits to flowers, 6, 

 they bear on their bodies the 

 yellow pollen from one flower to 

 another, and scatter it over the 

 parts prepared to receive and 



be fertilized by it. Thus they 

 are agents by which vegeta- 



tion is invigorated, 

 and the earth made 

 abundantly fruitful 

 and rich in beauty / * 

 Pollen is the fine substance, like 

 flour, contained in the anthers of 

 flowers. 



Insects undergo wonderful me- 

 tamorphoses (changes of form), 

 which distinguish them from all 

 other classes. They pass through 

 four states of existence : first, that 

 of the egg, 1 ; second, the larva (a 



215. 



state of being mashed, or dis- 

 guised), 2 ; third, the pupa (baby- 

 like, wrapped in swaddling- 



* Our readers may feel surprised that we have 

 omitted from the above enumeration of the uses of 

 insects, any allusion to the interesting genus, named 

 by Linnaeus, Corallina. or, as they are commonly 

 termed "coral insects. We will therefore explain, 

 that the animalcules, which form the coral reefs and 

 islands, so frequently mentioned in natural histories, 

 are not, properly speaking, insects. They belong to 

 the class Fhytozoa, or Polypi/era, and are more like 

 minute, transparent worms than true insects, 181. An 

 account of them will be given hereafter. But, for the 



S resent, how shall the reader speak of them ? Let 

 im say, " the coral animalcule, or " the coral polyp 

 {poUtp)." 



