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LETTER XXL 

 MEANS BY WHICH INSECTS DEFEND THEMSELVES. 



When a country is particularly open to attack, or surrounded 

 by numerous enemies, who from cupidity or hostile feelings 

 are disposed to annoy it, we are usually led to inquire what 

 are its means of defence f whether natural, or arising from the 

 number, courage, or skill of its inhabitants. The insect tribes 

 constitute such a nation : with them infinite hosts of enemies 

 wage continual war, many of whom derive the whole of their 

 subsistence from them : and amongst their own tribes there 

 are numerous civil broils, the strong often preying upon the 

 weak, and the cunning upon the simple : so that unless a 

 watchful Providence (which cares for all its creatures, even 

 the most insignificant) had supplied them with some mode of 

 resistance or escape, this innumerable race must soon be ex- 

 tirpated. That such is the case, it shall be my endeavour in 

 this letter to prove ; in which I shall detail to you some of 

 the most remarkable means of defence with which they are 

 provided. For the sake of distinctness I shall consider these 

 under two separate heads, into which, indeed, they naturally 

 divide themselves : — Passive means of defence, such as are 

 independent of any efforts of the insect ; and active means of 

 defence, such as result from certain efforts of the insect, in 

 the employment of those instincts and instruments with which 

 Providence has furnished it for this purpose. 



I. The principal passive means of defence with which insects 

 are provided are derived from their colour and form, by which 

 they either deceive, dazzle, alarm, or annoy their enemies; 

 or from their substance, involuntary secretions, vitality, and 

 numbers. 



They often deceive them by imitating various substances. 

 Sometimes they so exactly resemble the soil which they in- 

 habit, that it must be a practised eye which can distinguish 



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