Is vife any thing better than what nature prefents to his obfervation. Is not this there fore mechanism, which the mechanic, hav ing a fimilar purpofe in view, adopts? the ftructure of a coat of mail to be referred to art? Is the fame ftructure of the lobster, conducing to the fame ufe, to be referred to any thing less than art? Some, who may acknowledge the imi'tation, and affent to the inference which we draw from it, in the inftance before us, may be difpofed, poffibly, to afk, why such imitations are not more frequent than they are, if it be true, as we alledge, that the fame principle of intelligence, defign, and mechanical contrivance, was exerted in the formation of natural bodies, as we employ in the making of the various inftruments by which our purposes are served. The answers to this question are, first, that it feldom happens, that precisely the fame purpose, and no other, is purfued in any work which we compare of nature and of art; fecondly, that it ftill feldomer happens, that we can imitate nature, if we would. Our materials and our workmanfhip are equally deficient. Springs and wires, and cork and leather, produce a poor fubftitute 2 B fubftitute for an arm or a hand. In the example which we have felected, I mean of a lobster's fhell compared with a coat of mail, thefe difficulties ftand lefs in the way, than in almost any other that can be affigned; and the confequence is, as we have feen, that art gladly borrows from nature her contrivance, and imitates it closely. BUT to return to infects. I think it is in this clafs of animals, above all others, efpecially when we take in the multitude of fpecies which the microscope discovers, that we are ftruck with what Cicero has called “the insatiable variety of nature." There are said to be fix thousand fpecies of flies; feven hundred and fixty butterflies; each different from all the reft. (St. Pierre.) The fame writer tells. us from his own obfervation, that thirtyseven species of winged infects, with diftinctions well expreffed, vifited a single strawberry plant in the course of three weeks*. Ray ob-. ferved, within the compafs of a mile or two of his own house, two hundred kinds of butterflies, nocturnal, and diurnal., He likewise afferts, but, I think, without any grounds of exact computation, that the number of fpecies1 of infects, reckoning all forts of them, may not be short of ten thousand *. And in this vaft variety of animal forms, (for the obferva tion is not confined to infects, though more! applicable perhaps to them than to any other! clafs,) we are fometimes led to take notice of the different methods, or rather of the ftudii oufly diverfified methods, by which one and the fame purpose is attained. In the article of breathing, for example, which was to be provided for in fome way or other, befide the ordinary varieties of lungs, gills, and breathing“ holes, (for infects in general respire, not by the mouth, but through holes in the fides,) the' nymphæ of gnats have an apparatus to raife' their backs to the top of the water, and so take breath. The hydrocanthari do the like by thrusting their tails out of the water t. The maggot of the eruca labra has a long tail, one part sheathed within another, (but which it can draw out at pleasure,) with a starry tuft at the end, by which tuft, when expanded upon the surface, the infect both fupports itself' *Wifd. of God, p. 23. + Derham, p. 7. in in the water, and draws in the air which is necessary. In the article of natural clothing, we have the fkins of animals invested with fcales, hair, feathers, mucus, froth; or itself turned into a fhell or cruft: in the no lefs neceffary article of offence and defence, we have teeth, talons, beaks, horns, ftings, prickles, with (the most fingular expedient for the fame purpose) the power of giving the electric shock, and, as is credibly related of some animals, of driving away their pursuers by an intolerable fœtor, or of blackening the water through which they are purfued. The confideration of these appearances might induce us to believe, that variety itself, diftinct from every other reason, was a motive in the mind of the Creator, or with the agents of his will. To this great variety in organized life the Deity has given, or perhaps there arises out of it, a correfponding variety of animal appetites. For the final caufe of this we have not far to feek. Did all animals covet the fame element, retreat, or food, it is evident how much fewer could be fupplied and accommodated, than what at prefent live conveniently together, and find a plentiful fubfiftence. What one nature rejects, another delights delights in: Food, which is naufeous to one tribe of animals, becomes, by that very property which makes it nauseous, an alluring dainty to another tribe. Carrion is a treat to dogs, ravens, vultures, fish. The exhalations of corrupted fubftances attract flies by crowds. Maggots revel in putrefaction. |