286 AFrECTION OF INSECTS FOR THEIR YOUNG. 



anxiety for tlielr preservation. Not that this can be said of 

 all insects. A very large proportion of them are doomed to 

 die before their young come into existence. But in these the 

 passion is not extinguished. It is merely modified, and its 

 direction changed. And when you witness the solicitude 

 with which they provide for the security and sustenance 

 of their future young, you can scarcely deny to them love 

 for a progeny they are never destined to behold. Like affec- 

 tionate parents in similar circumstances, their last efforts are 

 employed in providing for the children tha.t are to succeed 

 them. 



I. Observe the motions of that common white butterfly 

 which you see flying from herb to herb. You perceive that 

 it is not food she is in pursuit of : for flowers have no attrac- 

 tion for her. Her object is the discovery of a plant that 

 will supply the sustenance appropriated by Providence to her 

 young, upon which to deposit her eggs. Her own food has 

 been honey drawn from the nectary of a flower. This, there- 

 fore, or its neighbourhood, we might expect would be the 

 situation she would select for them. But no : as if aware 

 that this food would be to them poison, she is in search of 

 some plant of the cabbage tribe. But how is she to distin- 

 guish it from the surrounding vegetables ? She is taught of 

 God ! Led by an instinct far more unerring than the prac- 

 tised eye of the botanist, she recognises the desired plant the 

 moment she approaches it, and upon this she places her pre- 

 cious burden ; yet not without the further precaution of as- 

 certaining that it is not pre-occupied by the eggs of some other 

 butterfly ! Having fulfilled this duty, from which no ob- 

 stacle short of absolute impossibility, no danger however 

 threatening, can divert her, the affectionate mother dies. 



This may serve as one instance of the solicitude of insects 

 for their future progeny. But almost every species will 

 supply examples similar in principle, and in their particular 

 circumstances even more extraordinary. In every case (ex- 

 cept in some remarkable instances of mistakes of instinct, as 

 they may be termed, which will be subsequently adverted to) 

 the parent unerringly distinguishes the food siTitable for her 



