246 GENERAL REMARKS 
confifts in a rage of making colledlions, in bringing together what 
is beautiful or Lingular, and ferves to amufe an empty curiofity, 
little advantage is to be expedled from their labours. The true 
objedt in thefe refcarches ought to be, to obferve the manner in 
which the infedts live, what qualities they poffefs, how they are 
transformed, and what influence they have upon the general 
economy of nature. How much remains yet to be difcovered in 
thefe little animals, in whofe very fmallnefs nature fhows herfelf 
fo great ? Some of their fenfes, as that of hearing and fmelling, 
moreover the functions of the antenna?, the form of their eyes, 
their love, their generation, their means of defence, and of pro¬ 
viding for their different wants; all thefe are things that are as 
yet but very imperfedlly known. It is among the infedts that 
we perceive the mod; extraordinary deviations from the common 
courfe of nature. Thus we find that the aphides bring forth eggs 
and living young ones feveral times following, after only having 
been once impregnated by the male. In the genus phalamcz there 
are fome of which the females are without wings, and never en¬ 
joy the pleafure of flying except when they enjoy the embraces of 
the male, that carries them into the air, as it were, to indulge the 
rapture of love in the arms of zephyrs. Who is ignorant of the 
fagacity, induftry, and regularity of the bees ? Who would have 
imagined that there are infedfs that re-produce their limbs, and 
even their heads, when cut off? The curculio antiodontalgicus, 
which has the power of allaying the tooth-ach ; the rneloe majalis, 
ufeful in hydrophobia; the lylla vejicatoria , which draws blitters; 
the 
