DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERS OF ANIMALS. 



191 



under the form of tubular, starry, or stony stems, are denominated tubi- 

 pores, madrepores, and isises. 



The FIFTH or infusary order of worms, comprehends those minute and 

 simple aninialcules which are seldom capable of being traced, except by a 

 microscope ; and, for the most part, reside in putrid infusions of vegetables, 

 or in stagnant waters filled with vegetable matter. Of these, the smallest 

 known species is denomir ated monas. To a glass of the highest magnify- 

 ing power it appears nothing more than a minute simple point or speck of 

 jelly, obviously, however, evincing motion, but often from its dehcacy seem- 

 ing to blend itself with the water in which it swims. 



Such is a bird's-eye view of the Linnean class of worms, and its five or- 

 ders of intestinal, molluscous, testaceous, zoophytic, and infusory animals. 



The INSECTS form the next class in an ascending scale ; classically cha- 

 racterized as small animals, breathing through lateral spiracles, armed on all 

 sides with a bony skin, or covered with hair ; furnished with numerous feet 

 and moveable antennae or horns, which project from the body, and are the 

 probable instruments of sensation. They are so voluminous in their orders, 

 as well as in the genera belonging to the class, (this single class containing, 

 perhaps, as many species as are known to the whole twenty-four classes of 

 the vegetable kingdom,) that our time will allow us to do little more than 

 instance the names of a few of the most common and familiar kinds, under 

 the ordinal arrangement. The orders are seven ; ail insects being iiicluded 

 under the technical names of coleopterous, hemipterous, lepidopterous, 

 neuropterous, hymenopterous, dipterous, and apterous ; or to exchange the 

 Greek for English terms, under those of crustaceous-winged ; half- 

 crustaceous-winged ; scaly-winged ; reticulate or net work-winged ; mem- 

 branaq^'ous-winged ; two-winged ; and wingless. From all which it is ob- 

 vious4hat the ordinal character of insects is derived from the general idea 

 of wings ; to which I may add, that under this general idea, while the indivi- 

 duals of the last order are destitute of wings, and those of the last but one 

 are only possessed of two wings, the individuals of the preceding five orders 

 have four wings each, though not particularly specified in their ordinal 

 names. 



The COLEOPTEROUS or crustaceous- winged insects, constituting the 

 FIRST ORDER, are by far the most numerous ; and as the ordinal term im- 

 ports, embrace all those whose wings are of a shelly or crustaceous hard- 

 ness ; and are sub-distinguished by the nature of their antennas as being 

 clubbed at the end, thread-like, or bristly. Among the more familiar of 

 this order, I may mention the scarabaeus or beetle-kinds, a very numerous 

 race, equally distinguished by the metallic lustre of their wing-shells, and 

 their attachment to dunghills, and other animal filtli. The dermestes or 

 leather-eater, the larves or grubs of one species of which are found so per- 

 petually to prey on the bindings and books, and sometimes even on the 

 shelves, of libraries. The coccinella or lady-bird ; the curculio or weavil, 

 the larve of which is found so frequently in our filbert and hazel nuts, and 

 which secretes such a quantity of bile as to give the nut a bitter taste to a 

 considerable extent beyond the place in which it is immediately seated. 



The ptinus, producing in one of its species the death-watch, is another 

 insect belonging to this order, whose solemn and measured strokes repeat- 

 ed in the dead of the night, are so alarming to the fearful and superstitious j 

 but which, as we formerly noticed, merely proceed from the animal's stri- 

 king its little horny fronjtlet against the bed-post it inhabits, as a call of lovo 

 to the other sex. The lampyris or glow-worm : the cantharis or Spanish 



