I N S 
which they dyled cojfus, fuppofed to be the fame which is 
found under tlie bark of the willow or the a(h ; but this 
larva, which is a true caterpillar, has an infupportable 
fmell, and probably a difagreeable tafte ; fo that it is cer¬ 
tainly not the fame. In Africa the inhabitants eat the 
white ants. The galls formed by a cynips on a fpecies of 
fage in the ifle of Crete, and on the glechoma hederacea, 
are accounted by children a peculiar delicacy. The ho¬ 
ney of the bee is too well known as a nutritious fubdance, 
and a medicine, to be particularly noticed. The honey of 
dome didrifts in America is, however, poifonOus • (fee 
vol. x. p. 265) ; and new honey will often difagree with 
the bowels, vvhenthefe are peculiarly tender and irritable. 
If, with much trouble, we have colledled a fcanty cata¬ 
logue of nutritious infects, we frail not find the materia 
nredica greatly enriched from thefe minute animals. The 
cantharides are, however, of confiderable importance in 
medicine; (fee Cantharis, and Lytta ;) and the ants 
are faid, by infufion, to furnifli a pleafant and falutary .acid 
drink in fevers. The galls of tire oak and the bedaguar 
of the rofe-tree, though the eftefts of infefts, derive all 
their virtues apparently from juices of the tree and vege¬ 
table. The carabus, chryfocephalus, two fpecies of the 
fphex, two of the chryfomela and coccinella,'and three of 
the curculio, have been recommended in toofh-ach : the in¬ 
fers are to be bruifed between the fingers, and the tooth 
and gums rubbed with the fame fingers. The meloe ma- 
jalis and pnofcarabceus are of the nature of cantharides, 
but lefs powerful; the lytta veficatoria, however, is more 
fo. The onifcus addins (millepes) was formerly much 
employed as adlimulating expectorant in dropfy, in ob- 
ftruftionsof the liver, in afthma, and cynanche. Its nau- 
feous acrimony points it out as a medicine of importance; 
but its difgulhng appearance has occalioned its negleft. 
The coccus of the caftus coccinelliferus (cochineal) is faid 
to be ditnulant and diuretic; the fame infeft of the ficus 
Indica, and quercus ilicis, the lac, and kermes, to be af- 
tringent: but modern praftice neglefts both. We may 
mention alfo the ufe of the l'piders’ webs in external hae¬ 
morrhages, which aft in afliding the concretion of the 
blood; and an ant found in Cayenne, the formica fun- 
gofa of Eabricius, compoles its bed of a down fo fine, that 
it generally fucceeds in (topping arterial haemorrhages on 
the fame principle. The ancients ufed the horns of the 
cervus vohns as an ablorbent; and Linnaeus teils us, that 
in Sweden a fpecies of gryllus is irritated lb as to bite 
warts, and that the fluids from its mouth deftroys them. 
The trivial name is afligned from this property. 
Among the advantages derived to mankind from infefts, 
we need not name the (ilk, and the fcarlet dye from the 
cochineal. Many infefts, befides-that of the mulberry, 
fpin a filken pod ; and from many of the cocci, a brilliant 
colour, though inferior to that of the cochineal, may be 
obtained. From the filkworm’s. pod, the Chinefe, it is 
faid, prepare a brilliant and durable varnifh. This worm 
affords alfo the Bengal root, ftyled in England Indian grafs,’ 
fo ufeful to the filherman. We need not add Reaumur’s 
attempt to make filk from fpiders’ webs, in which it has 
been fuppofed he would have fucceeded, could he have 
induced them to live peaceably with each other. The 
gum-lac and bees-wax are well known, and fome natu- 
ralifts have attributed amber to thefe animals. Among the 
advantages of infefts to mankind, we may alfo reckon 
their furnidiing birds with a copious fupply of nourifli- 
ment, and their deftruftion of putrid matter and of each 
other. The chief difadvantages are derived from their 
dedruftive ravages on books and furniture, and, above all, 
from the difeafes which they occafion. The very trou- 
blefome itching produced by many fpecies of acarus is 
well known. The loufe, the flea, the bug, and the mof- 
quito, are the common enemies of our repofe; and in 
warm climates are far more numerous and fatal. The lo- 
£ufts, which deflroy our harveds, the infefts fo fatal to 
vegetables of every kind, are fcarcely objefts of our at- 
Vql. XI. No. 740. 
E C T, ]33 
tention at this time : they mud be watched in their date 
of larva:, when they may be at.once extirpated. The molt 
deftruftive flies efcape our attention by their harmlefs or 
pleafing appearance in this date of difguife. 
Of Cruelty to InfcEls. —It does not appear upon what prin¬ 
ciple of reafon and ju'ftice it is, that mankind have found¬ 
ed their right over the lives of every creature that is placed 
in a fubordinate rank of being to tbemfclves. Whatever 
claim they may have in right of food and of felf-defence, 
did they extend their privilege no farther, numberlefs be¬ 
ings might enjoy their lives in peace, who are now hurried 
out of them by the mod wanton and unneceflary cruelties. 
It is furely difficult to difeover why it (hould be thought 
lefs inhuman to crufh to death a harmlefs infeft, whofe 
lingle offence is that he eats that food which nature has pre¬ 
pared for his fudenance, than it would be were we to kill 
any bulky creature for the fame reafon. There are few 
tempers fo hardened againd the impreffions of humanity, as 
not to diudder at the thought of the latter; and yet the 
former is universally praftiled without the lead check of 
compaffion. This fee ms to 4 rife from the grofs error of 
fuppofing, that every creature is really in itfelf contempti¬ 
ble which happens to be clothed with a body infinitely 
difproportionate to our own, not conlidering that great aijid 
little are merely relative terms. But the inimitable Shakef- 
peare would teach us that 
The poor beetle that we tread upon, 
In corp’ral fnff’rance, feels a pang as great 
As when a giant dies. 
And indeed there is every reafon to believe that the fen- 
fations of many infefts are as exqnilite as thole of crea¬ 
tures of far more enlarged dimenfions, perhaps even more 
fo. The millepede, for indance, rolls itfelf round upon 
the dighted touch, and the fnail draws in its horns upon 
the lead approach of our hand. Are not thefe the ltrong- 
ell indications of their fenfibility ? and, is it any evidence 
of ours, that we are not therefore induced to treat them 
with’a more fympathiling tendernefs ? 
Montaigne remarks, that there is a certain claim of 
kindnefs.and benevolence which every fpecies of creatures 
has a right to from us. It is to be regretted that this ge¬ 
neral maxim is not more attended to in the affair of edu¬ 
cation, and prefled home upon tender minds in its full 
extent and latitude. We are far, indeed, from thinking, 
that the early delight /which children difeover in torment¬ 
ing dies, &c. is a mark of any innate cruelty of temper, 
becaufe this turn may be accounted for on other princi¬ 
ples ; and it is entertaining unworthy notions of the Dei¬ 
ty, to fuppofe he forms mankind with a propenfity to the 
molt detedable of all difpofltions; but mod certainly, by 
being unredrained in (ports of this kind, they may ac¬ 
quire by habit what they never would have learned from 
nature, and grow up into a confirmed inattention to every 
kind of fuffering but. their own. Accordingly the fu- 
preme court of judicature at Athens thought an indance 
of this fort not below its cognizance, and punifhed a boy 
for putting out the eyes of a poor bird that had unhappily 
fallen into his hands. It might be of fervice, therefore, 
it (hould feem, in order to awaken as early as podible in 
children an extenfive fenfe of humanity, to give them a 
view of feveral forts of infefts as they may be magnified 
by the affidance of glaffes ; and to fliow them that the 
fame evident marks of wifdom and goodnefs prevail in 
the formation of the minuted infeft, as in that of the mod 
enormous leviathan ; that they are equally furnidied with 
whatever is necedary, not only to the prefervation, but 
the happinefs, of their beings in that clafs of exidence 
which Providence has afligned them; in a word, that the 
whole condruftion of their refpeftive organs didinftly 
proclaims them the objefts of the divine benevolence, and 
therefore that they juflly ought to be fo of ours. 
INSEC'TABLE, adj. [trom in, Lat. contrary to, and 
fequor, to follow.] Incapable of being followed. Scott. 
M m INSECTA'TION, 
