INDIRECT BENEFITS DERIVED FROM INSECTS. 215 



in subsequent letters which you will readily perceive have an 

 intimate bearing upon it ; and I shall, therefore, proceed to 

 point out the more evident benefits which we derive from 

 insects, arranging them under the two great heads of direct 

 benefits, and those which are indirect; beginning with the 

 latter. 



The insects which are indirectly beneficial to us may be 

 considered under three points of view; first, as removing 

 various nuisances and deformities from the face of nature; 

 secondly, as destroying other insects^ that but for their agency 

 would multiply so as greatly to injure and annoy us; and, 

 thirdly, as supplying food to useful animals, particularly to 

 Jish and birds. 



To advert in the first place to the former. All substances 

 must be regarded as nuisances and deformities, when con- 

 sidered with relation to the whole, which are deprived of the 

 principle of animation. In this relation stand a dead carcass, 

 a dead tree, or a mass of excrement, which are clearly in- 

 cumbrances that it is desirable to have removed; and the 

 office of effecting this removal is chiefly assigned to insects, 

 which have been justly called the great scavengers of nature. 

 Let us consider their little but effective operations in each of 

 their vocations. 



How disgusting to the eye, how offensive to the smell, 

 would be the whole face of nature, were the vast quantity of 

 excrement daily falling to the earth from the various animals 

 which inhabit it, suffered to remain until gradually dissolved 

 by the rain, or decomposed by the elements ! That it does 

 not thus offend us, we are indebted to an inconceivable host 

 of insects which attack it the moment it falls ; some imme- 

 diately beginning to devour it, others depositing in it eggs 

 from which are soon hatched larvae that concur in the same 

 office with tenfold voracity ; and thus every particle of dung, 

 at least of the most offensive kinds, speedily swarms with 

 inhabitants which consume all the liquid and noisome par- 

 ticles, leaving nothing but the undigested remains, that soon 

 dry, and are scattered by the winds, while the grass upon 

 which it rested, no longer smothered by an impenetrable 

 mass, springs up with increased vigour. 



p 4 



