conduct of many kinds of animals towards their young, has escaped no obferver, no hiftorian, of nature. "How will they carefs them," fays Derham, "with their affectionate notes; lull and quiet them with their tender parental voice; put food into their mouths; cherish, and keep them warm; teach them to pick, and eat, and gather food for themselves; and, in a word, perform the part of fo many nurses, deputed by the fovereign Lord and preferver of the world, to help fuch young and fhiftlefs creatures ?" Neither ought it, under this head, to be forgotten, how much the inftinct costs the animal which feels it; how much a bird, for example, gives up, by fitting upon her neft; how repugnant it is to her organization, her habits, and her pleasures. An animal, formed for liberty, fubmits to confinement, in the very feafon when every thing invites her abroad: what is more; an animal delighting in motion, made for motion, all whofe motions are so easy and so free, hardly a moment, at other times, at reft, is, for many hours of many days together, fixed to her neft, as clofe as if her limbs were tied down by pins and wires. For my part, I never fee a bird in that fituation, but I recognize an invifible hand, detaining the contented prifoner from her fields and groves, for a purpofe, as the event proves, the most worthy of the facrifice, the most important, the most beneficial.

But the lofs of liberty is not the whole of what the procreant bird fuffers. Harvey tells us, that he has often found the female wafted to skin and bone by fitting upon her eggs.

One obfervation more, and I will difmifs the fub. jećt. The pairing of birds, and the non-pairing of beals, forms a diftinétion, between the two clalles, which fhews that the conjugal inftin&t is modified with a reference to utility founded in the condition of the offspring. In quadrupeds, the young animal

draws its nutriment from the body of the dam. The male parent neither does, nor can, contribute any part to its fuftentation. In the feathered race, the young bird is fupplied by an importation of food, to procure and bring home which, in a fufficient quantity for the demand of a numerous brood, requires the industry of both parents. In this difference we see a reafon, for the vagrant inftinct of the quadruped, and for the faithful love of the feathered mate.

CHAPTER XIX.

OF INSECTS.

We are not writing a fyftem of natural hiftory;

therefore, we have not attended to the claffes, into which the fubjects of that fcience are diftributed. What we had to obferve concerning different fpecies of animals, fell cafily, for the most part, within the divifions, which the courfe of our argument led us to adopt. There remain, however, fome remarks upon the infect tribe, which could not properly be introduced under any of thefe heads; and which therefore we have collected into a chapter by themselves.

The ftructure, and the use of the parts, of infects, are lefs understood than that of quadrupeds and birds, not only by reason of their minutenefs, or the minutenefs of their parts, (for that minutenefs we can, in fome meafure, follow with glaffes) but alfo, by reafon of the remotenefs of their manners and modes of life from those of larger animals. For inftance; Infects, under all their varieties of form, are endowed with antenna, which is the name given to thofe long feelers that rise from each side of the head; but to what common use or want of the infect kind, a provifion fo univerfal is fubfervient, has not yet been afcer

tained; and it has not been afcertained, because it admits not of a clear, or very probable comparison, with any organs which we poffefs ourselves, or with the organs of animals which refemble ourselves in their functions and faculties, or with which we are better acquainted than we are with infects. We want a ground of analogy. This difficulty ftands in our way as to fome particulars in the infect conftitution which we might wish to be acquainted with. Nevertheless, there are many contrivances in the bodies of infects, neither dubious in their use, nor obfcure in their ftructure, and moft properly mechanical. These form parts of our argument.

I. The elytra, or fcaly wings of the genus of fcarabæus or beetle, furnish an inftance of this kind. The true wing of the animal is a light transparent membrane, finer than the finest gauze, and not unlike it. It is alfo, when expanded, in proportion to the fize of the animal, very large. In order to protect this delicate ftructure, and, perhaps, alfo to preferve it in a due ftate of fupplenefs and humidity, a ftrong, hard, cafe is given to it, in the fhape of the horny wing which we call the elytron. When the animal is at reft, the gauze wings lie folded up under this impen. etrable thield. When the beetle prepares for flying, he raifes the integument, and fpreads out his thin membrane to the air. And it cannot be oblerved without admiration, what a tiffue of cordage, i. e. of muscular tendons, must run, in various and complicated, but determinate directions, along this fine furface, in order to enable the animal, either to gather it up into a certain precife form, whenever it defires to place its wings under the fhelter which nature hath given to them; or to expand again their folds, when wanted for action.

In fome infects, the elytra cover the whole body; in others, half; in others, only a fmall part of it; but in all they completely hide and cover the true wings.

Alfo, many or most of the beetle fpecies lodge in holes in the earth, environed by hard, rough, fubflances, and have frequently to fqueeze their way through narrow paffages; in which fituation, wings fo tender, and fo large, could fcarcely have escaped injury, without both a firm covering to defend them, and the capacity of collecting themselves up under its protection.

II. Another contrivance, equally mechanical, and equally clear, is the awl or borer fixed at the tails of various fpecies of flies; and with which they pierce, in fome cafes, plants; in others, wood; in others, the fkin and flesh of animals; in others, the coat of the chryfalis of infects of a different fpecies from their own; and in others, even lime, mortar, and ftone. I need not add, that having pierced the fubftance, they depofit their eggs in the hole. The defcriptions, which naturalifts give of this organ, are fuch as the following, It is a fharp-pointed inflrument, which, in its inactive state, lies concealed in the extremity of the abdomen, and which the animal draws out at pleasure, for the purpose of making a puncture in the leaves, ftem, or bark of the particular plant, which is fuited to the nourishment of its young. a fheath, which divides and opens whenever the organ is used, there is inclofed a compact, folid, dentated ftem, along which runs a gutter or groove, by which groove, after the penetration is effected, the egg, affifted, in fome cafes, by a periftaltic motion, paffes to its defined lodgment. In the ceftrum or gadfly, the wimble draws out like the pieces of a fpy-glafs; the laft piece is armed with three hooks, and is able to bore through the hide of an ox. Can any thing more be neceffary to difplay the mechanifm, than to relate the fa&t?

In

III. The fings of infects, though for a different purpose, are, in their structure, not unlike the pier

cer. The shapeness to which the point in all of them is wrought the temper and firmness of the fubftance of which it is compofed; the strength of the muscles by which it is darted out, compared with the fmallness and weakness of the infect, and with the foft or friable texture of the rest of the body; are properties of the fting to be noticed, and not a little to be admired. The fting of a bee will pierce through a goatskin glove. It penetrates the human fkin more readily than the finest point of a needle. The action of the fting affords an example of the union of chymistry and mechanism, fuch as, if it be not a proof of contrivance, nothing is. Firft, as to the chymiftry; how highly concentrated must be the venom, which, in fo Imall a quantity, can produce fuch powerful effects? -And in the bee we may obferve, that this venom is made from honey, the only food of the infect, but the laft material from which I fhould have expected, that an exalted poifon could, by any procefs or digeftion whatsoever, have been prepared. In the next place, with respect to the mechanism, the fting is not a fimple, but a compound inftrument. The vifible fting, though drawn to a point exquifitely fharp, is in ftrictnefs only a fheath; for, near to the extremity, may be perceived by the microscope two minute orifices, from which orifices, in the aft of flinging, and, as it should seem, after the main fting has buried itfelf in the flesh, are launched out two fubtile ray's, which may be called the true or proper flings, as being those through which the poifon is infufed into the puncture already made by the exterior fting. I have faid that chymistry and mechanifm are here united: by which obfervation I meant, that all this machinery would have been useless, telum imbelle, if a fupply of poifon, intense in quality, in proportion to the fmalinefs of the drop, had not been furnished to it by the chymical elaboration which was carried on in the infect's