COLEOPTEROUS INSECTS. 
79 
sense and motion, and lias a nervous and respiratory 
system of greater complexity than many of the lar- 
ger animals — that the various processes of digestion, 
assimilation, and secretion, are continually going 
forward — that not a limb can be put in motion 
without calling into play a multitude of muscles — 
and that this atomic being is moreover endowed 
with instincts which regulate with almost unerring 
certainty all its habits and economy — we can scarce- 
ly fail to regard it as affording a more striking in- 
stance of consummate skill than if it had occupied 
a much larger space. 
The shapely limb, and lubricated joint, 
Within the small dimensions of a point, 
Muscle and nerve miraculously spun, 
His mighty work, who speaks and it is done; 
The invisible in things scarce seen revealed, 
To whom an atom is an ample field. 
“ To the eye of the naturalist,” says Latreille, 
“ the mass or volume of an object is a matter of 
little consequence. The wisdom of the Creator 
never appears more conspicuous than in the struc- 
ture of those minute beings which seem to conceal 
themselves from observation ; and .Almighty Power 
is never more strikingly exhibited than in the con- 
centration of organs in such an atom. In giving 
life to this atom, and constructing in dimensions 
so minute so many organs susceptible of different 
sensations, my admiration of the Supreme Intelli- 
gence is much more heightened than by the con- 
