NATURAL HISTORY OF PLINY. 
BOOK XI. 
THE VARIOUS KINDS OP INSECTS. 
CHAP. 1. (1.) THE ESTEEME SMALLNESS OF INSECTS. 
We shall now proceed to a description of the insects, a 
subject replete with endless difficulties ;^ for, in fact, there 
are some authors who have maintained that they do not respire, 
and that they are destitute of blood. The insects are numerous, 
and form many species, and their mode of life is like that of 
the terrestrial animals and the birds. Some of them are fur- 
nished with wings, bees for instance ; others are divided into 
those kinds which have wings, and those which are without 
them, such as ants ; while others, again, are destitute of both 
wings and feet. All these animals have been very properly 
called ^ insects, from the incisures or divisions which sepa- 
rate the body, sometimes at the neck, and sometimes at the 
corselet, and so divide it into members or segments, only 
united to each other by a slender tube. In some insects, how- 
ever, this division is not complete, as it is surrounded by 
wrinkled folds ; and thus the flexible vertebrae of the creature, 
whether situate at the abdomen, or whether only at the upper 
part of the body, are protected by layers, overlapping each 
other ; indeed, in no one of her works has I^ature more fully 
displayed her exhaustless ingenuity. 
(2.) In large animals, on the other hand, or, at all events, 
^ " Immense subtilitatis." As Cuvier remarks, the ancients have com- 
mitted more errors in reference to the insects, than to any other portion of 
the animal world. The discovery of the microscope has served more than 
anything to correct these erroneous notions. 
2 '*Insecta," ^'articulated." 
VOL. Ill, . B 
