gnat. It is sub-distinguished into such animals as possess a sucker with 

 a proboscis, and such as possess a sucker without a proboscis. This order 

 is the antliata of some entomologists. 



The LAST ORDER OF INSECTS differs stili more largely from all that have 

 been hitherto noticed ; for it consists of those kinds that have no wings 

 whatever, and hence the class is called aptera or wingless. To this 

 order belong most of those insects that are fond of burrowing in animal 

 filth, upon the animal surface ; as the pulex, pediculus, and acarus, the flea, 

 louse, and itch-insect. To the same order belongs also the aranea or 

 spider ; the oniscus, wood-louse or millepede ; the scorpio or scorpion, and 

 even the cancer or crab, and lobster : the Linn^an system making no dis- 

 thiction between land and water animals from the difficulty of drawing a 

 line ; of which indeed the cancer genus is a very striking example, since 

 one of the species, cancer ruricola^ or land-crab, is, as we have already seen, 

 cm inhabitant of woods and mountains, and merely migrates to the nearest 

 coast once a-year for the purpose of depositing its spawn in the waters. 

 These, however, are separated from the class of insects in M. Cuvier's 

 classification, and form a distinct class by themselves under the name of 

 CRUSTACEA ; while the greater part of the rest, as spiders, v/ater-spiders, 

 spring-tails, millepedes, centipedes, and scorpions, are also carried to a , 

 distinct order of the inseqt'' class, which he has called oNATbasiMXte, ^"71-'"^*^ 

 leaving to his own order of A^^ril nothing more than the first three of the 

 preceding list, the flea, lous^, and tick or itch-insect. 



But of all the animals belonging to this division under the Linnean classi- 

 fication, I should mention, perhaps, an account of its singular instinctive 

 faculties, the termes or white ant. The kind which inhabits India, Africa, 

 and South America is gregarious, and forms a community, far exceeding in 

 wisdom and policy the bee, the ant, or the beaver. The houses they build 

 have the appearance of pyramids, of ten or twelve feet in height ; and are 

 divided into appropriate apartments, magazines for provisions, arched cham- 

 bers and galleries of communication. The walls of all these are so firmly 

 cemented that they will bear the weight of four men without giving way : 

 and on the plains of Senegal, the collective pyramids appear like villages of 

 the natives. Their powers of destruction are equal to those of architec- 

 ture ; for eo rapidly and dexterously will they destroy, in less bodies, food, 

 furniture, books, clothes, and timber of whatever magnitude, leaving in 

 every instance the merest thin surface, that a large beam will in a few 

 hours be eaten to a shell not thicker than a page of writing paper. 



It was my intention to have finished our survey of the Linnean system 

 in the course of the present lecture ; but the prospect swells so widely 

 , before us that it is impossible ; and the remaining four classes of fishes, 

 amphibials, birds, and mammals, must be reserved for another study. 



In the mean time, allow me to remark, that low and little as the tribes 

 we have thus far contemplated may appear, they all variously contribute to 

 the common good of animal being, and aid, in different ways, toe harmo- 

 nious circle of decomposition, renovation, and maturity of life, health, and 

 enjoyment. The insect tribes, beautiful as they are in their respective 

 liveries, may be regarded as the grand scavengers of nature. Wherever 

 putridity is to be found, they are present to devour the substance from * 

 which it issues ; and such is the extent and rapidity of their action, that it 

 has been calculated by some naturalists that the progeny of not more than 

 a dozen flies will consume a dead carcass in a shorter space than a hungry 

 lion. Thus^ while they people the- atmosphere they purify it ; md m mmy 



