shaped appendages with which the thighs of bees are beset for this very purpose; but, inasmuch as the art and will of the bee may be supposed to be concerned in this operation, there is, secondly, that which doth not rest in art or will,—a digestive faculty which converts the loose powder into a stiff substance. This is a just account of the honey, and the honey-comb: and this account, through every part, carries a creative intelligence along with it.

The sting also of the bee has this relation to the honey, that it is necessary for the protection of a treasure which invites so robbers.

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III. Our business is with mechanism. the panorpa tribe of insects, there is a forceps in the tail of the male insect, with which he catches and holds the female. a pair of pincers more mechanical than this provision in its structure? or is any structure more clear and certain in its design?

IV. St. Pierre tells us*, that in a fly with six feet (I do not remember that he describes the species), the pair next the head and the pair next the tail, have brushes at their extremities, with which the fly dresses, as there may be occasion, the anterior or the poste

* Vol. i. p. 342.

rior part of its body; but that the middle pair have no such brushes, the situation of these legs not admitting of the brushes, if they were there, being converted to the same use. This is a very exact mechanical, distinction.

V. If the reader, looking to our distributions of science, wish to contemplate the chymistry, as well as the mechanism of nature, the insect creation will afford him an example. I refer to the light in the tail of a glow-worm. Two points seem to be agreed upon by naturalists concerning it: first, that it is phosphoric; secondly, that its use is to attract the male insect. The only thing to be inquired after, is the singularity, if any such there be, in the natural history of this animal, which should render a provision of this kind more necessary for it, than for other insects. That singularity seems to be the difference which subsists between the male and the female; which difference is greater than what we find in any other species of animal whatever. The glow-worm is a female caterpillar; the male of which is a fly; lively, comparatively small, dissimilar to the female in appearance, probably also as distinguished from her in habits, pur

suits, and manners, as he is unlike in form and external constitution. Here then is the adversity of the case. The caterpillar cannot meet her companion in the air. The winged rover disdains the ground. They might never therefore be brought together, did not this radiant torch direct the volatile mate to his sedentary female.

In this example, we also see the resources of art anticipated. One grand operation of chymistry is the making of phosphorus: and it was thought an ingenious device, to make phosphoric matches supply the place of lighted tapers. Now this very thing is done in the body of the glow-worm. The phosphorus is not only made, but kindled; and caused to emit a steady and genial beam, for the purpose which is here stated, and which I believe to be the true one.

VI. Nor is the last the only instance that entomology affords, in which our discoveries, or rather our projects, turn out to be imitations of nature. Some years ago, a plan was suggested, of producing propulsion by re-action in this way: By the force of a steamengine, a stream of water was to be shot out of the stern of a boat; the impulse of which stream upon the water in the river, was to

push the boat itself forward; it is, in truth, the principle by which sky-rockets ascend in the air. Of the use or practicability of the plan, I am not speaking; nor is it my concern to praise its ingenuity: but it is certainly a contrivance. Now, if naturalists are to be believed, it is exactly the device, which nature has made use of, for the motion of some species of aquatic insects. The larva of the dragon-fly, according to Adams, swims by ejecting water from its tail; is driven forward by the re-action of water in the pool upon the current issuing in a direction backward from its body.

VII. Again Europe has lately been surprised by the elevation of bodies in the air by means of a balloon. The discovery consisted in finding out a manageable substance, which was bulk for bulk, lighter than air: and the application of the discovery was, to make a body composed of this substance bear up, along with its own weight, some heavier body which was attached to it. This expedient, so new to us, proves to be no other than what the Author of nature has employed in the gossamir spider. We frequently see this spider's thread floating in the air, and extended from hedge to hedge, across a road or brook of four or five yards

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width. The animal which forms the thread, has no wings wherewith to fly from one extremity to the other of this line; nor muscles to enable it to spring or dart to so great a distance: yet its Creator hath laid for it a path in the atmosphere; and after this manner. Though the animal itself be heavier than air, the thread which it spins from its bowels is specifically lighter. This is its balloon. The spider, left to itself, would drop to the ground; but being tied to its thread, both are supported. We have here a very peculiar provision: and to a contemplative eye it is a gratifying spectacle, to see this insect wafted on her thread, sustained by a levity not her own, and traversing regions, which, if we examined only the body of the animal, might seem to have been forbidden to its nature.

I must now crave the reader's permission to introduce into this place, for want of a better, an observation or two upon the tribe of animals, whether belonging to land or water, which are covered by shells.

I. The shells of snails are a wonderful, à mechanical, and, if one might so speak concerning the works of nature, an original con