64 DIRECT INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS. 



dens, we should soon be reduced, in every possible respect, to a 

 state of extreme wretchedness ; the prey of the most filthy and 

 disgusting diseases, divested of a covering, unsheltered, except 

 by caves and dungeons, from the inclemency of the seasons, 

 exposed to all the extremities of want and famine; and in the 

 end, as Sir Joseph Banks, speaking on this subject, has well 

 observed^, driven with all the larger animals from the face of 

 the earth. You may smile, perhaps, and think this a high- 

 coloured picture, but you will recollect, I am not stating 

 the mischiefs that insects commonly do, but what they would 

 do, according to all probability, if certain counter-checks re- 

 straining them within due limits had not been put in action ; 

 and which they actually do, as you will see, in particular cases, 

 when those counter-checks are diminished or removed. 



Insects may be said, without hyperbole, to have established 

 a kind of universal empire over the earth and its inhabitants. 

 This is principally conspicuous in the injuries which they oc- 

 casion, for nothing in nature that possesses or has possessed 

 animal or vegetable life is safe from their inroads. Neither 

 the cunning of the fox, nor the swiftness of the horse or deer, 

 nor the strength of the buifalo, nor the ferocity of the lion or 

 tiger, nor the armour of the rhinoceros, nor the giant bulk 

 or sagacity of the elephant, nor even the authority of imperial 

 man, who boasts himself to be the lord of all, can secure them 

 from becoming a prey to these despised beings. The air af- 

 fords no protection to the birds, nor the water to the fish ; 

 insects pursue them all to their most secret conclaves and 

 strongest citadels, and compel them to submit to their sway. 

 Flora's empire is still more exposed to their cruel domination 

 and ravages ; and there is scarcely one of her innumerable 

 subjects, from the oak, the glory of the forest, to the most 

 minute lichen that grows upon its trunk, that is not de- 

 stined to be the food of these next to nonentities in our es- 

 timation. And when life departs from man, the inferior 

 animals, or vegetables, they become universally, sooner or 

 later, the inheritance of insects. 



I shall principally bespeak your attention to the injuries in 

 question as they affect ourselves. These may be divided into 



1 On the Blight in Corn, p. 9. 



