clocks as on her watches". And, indeed, if we compare the ftructure of an elephant with that of a mite, we fhall perceive the juftness of his remark. With whatever degree of furprife, or even of terror, we may at first confider the huge bulk and prodigious ftrength of the elephant, we fhall find our aftonishment ftill greater, if we attentively examine the minute parts of the mite: for the latter has more limbs than the elephant; each of them (as I obferved before) furnished with veins and arteries, nerves, mufcles, tendons, and bones: it has eyes, a mouth, and a probofcis too (as well as the elephant) to take in its nourishment: a heart, moreover, to propel the circulation of the blood, a brain to fupply nerves in every part, and organs of generations as perfect as in the largest animal. Now, if the extreme minuteness of these parts is not merely furprising, but far above our utmoft conception, what fhall we fay to thofe various fpecies of animalcules, to which the mite itself, in fize, is, as it were, an elephant?

However inconceivable it may appear, it is yet a fact, that a mite upon a cheese is as large and confiderable, in proportion, as a man upon the earth. The little infects that feed upon the leaves of peachtrees, are no bad reprefentation of oxen grazing in large paftures; and the animalcules, in a drop of water, fwim about with as much freedom as whales do in an ocean. In a word, they have all equal room in proportion to their bulk.

Nor power alone confefs'd in grandeur lies,
The glittering planet, or the painted fkies;
Equal, the elephant's or emmet's dress,
The wisdom of Omnipotence confefs;
Equal the cumbrous whale's enormous mafs,
With the small infect in the crowded grafs;
The mite that gambols, in its acid fea,
In fhape a porpus, tho' a fpeck to thee!

E'en the blue down the purple plum furrounds,
A living world, thy failing fight confounds!
To thee a peopled habitation shows,

Where millions tafte the bounty God beftows. BOYSE.

The discoveries of the microscope suggest to us this important truth, that our ideas of matter, magnitude, and minutenefs, are merely comparative. They are taken from ourselves and the things around us, beyond which, if we endeavour to extend them, they become very indiftinct. The beginnings and endings, exceffive greatnefs or extreme littleness, of things, are to us all perplexity and confufion.

"Let a man (fays Mr. Addifon ) try to conceive the different bulk of an animal which is twenty, from another which is a hundred times less than a mite; or to compare, in his thoughts, a length of a thousand diameters of the earth with that of a million; and he will quickly find that he has no different measures in his mind, adjufted to fuch extraordinary degrees of grandeur or minutenefs. The Understanding, indeed, opens an infinite space on every fide of us; but the Imagination, after a few faint efforts, is immediately at a ftand, and finds itfelf swallowed up in the immenfity of the void that furrounds it. Our Readers can purfue a particle of matter through an infinite variety of divifions; but the Fancy foon lofes fight of it, and feels in itfelf a kind of chafm, that wants to be filled with matter of a more fenfible bulk. We can neither widen nor contract the faculty to the dimenfions of either extreme. The object is too big for our capacity, when we would comprehend the circumference of a world, and dwindles into nothing when we endeayour after the idea of an atom".

But although the powers of the imagination be thus defective, the understanding is convinced by

a Spectator, No. 420.

demonftration, and beholds this variety of wonders with aftonifhment and awe. Whether, with a Newton or a Herfchel, we take the telescope, and compute the ftupendous magnitude and velocity of a planet; or, with a Leewenhoeck or a Baker, furvey, through a microfcope, the ftructure and conformation of a mite; in each we are compelled to admire and adore the pervading wisdom and energy of the Creator:

In the Vaft and the Minute

The unambiguous footsteps of the God,
Who gives its luftre to an infe&t's wing,

And wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds.

COWPER.

XXXIII. A VIEW OF THE INSECT TRIBES.

We wonder at a thousand infect forms,
'Thefe hatch'd, and thofe refufcitated worms,
New life ordain'd, and brighter fcenes to fhare,
Once prone on earth, now buoyant upon air.

COWPER.

INSECTS exhibit fuch an immenfe variety in figure, colour, and difpofition of parts, that naturalifts have found it neceffary to arrange them into different tribes or families, diftinguished from one another by certain peculiarities in the ftructure of their bodies.

The moft general divifion of infects is derived from the circumftance of their having or wanting wings, and from the number and fubftances of which thefe inftruments of motion are compofed. They are diftinguished from all other animals by many pe

culiarities of form. None of the other claffes have more legs than four. But most infects have fix; and many of them have eight, ten, fourteen, fixteen, eighteen, and even a hundred legs. Befide the number of legs, infects are furnished with antenna, or feelers. Thefe feelers, by which they grope and examine the fubftances they meet with, are compofed of a great number of articulations or joints. Linné, and other naturalifts, maintain, that the uses of these feelers are totally unknown. But the flighteft attention to the manner in which fome infects employ their feelers will fatisfy us of at least one use they derive from thefe organs. When a wingless infect is placed at the end of a twig, or in any fituation where it meets with a vacuity, it moves the feelers backward and forward, elevates, depreffes, and bends them from fide to fide, and will not advance further, left it fhould fall. If a stick, or any other fubftance, be placed within reach of the feelers, the animal immediately applies them to this new object, examines whether it is fufficient to fupport the weight of its body, and inftantly proceeds in its journey. Though most infects are provided with eyes, yet the lenfes of which they confift are fo fmall and convex, that they can fee diftinctly but at small diftances, and, of courfe, muft be very incompetent judges of the vicinity or remoteness of objects. To remedy this defect, they are provided with feelers, which are perpetually in motion while the animals walk. By the fame inftruments, they are enabled to walk with fafety in the dark.

No other animals but the infect tribes have more than two eyes; but fome of them have four, and others, as the fpider and fcorpion, have eight eyes. In a few infects, the eyes are smooth; in all the others, they are hemifpherical, and confift of many. thousand diftinct lenfes. The eyes are abfolutely immoveable but this defect is fupplied by the vast

number of lenses, which, from the diversity of their pofitions, are capable of viewing objects in every direction. By the fmallness and convexity of thefe lenfes, which produce the fame effect as the object glafs of a microscope, infects are enabled to fee bodies that are too minute to be perceived by the human eye. Another peculiarity deferves alfo our notice. No animals, except a numerous tribe of four-winged infects, have more than two wings.

With regard to fex, quadrupeds, birds, and fifhes, are diftinguished into males and females. But the bee and the ant furnish examples of neuters, which are abfolutely barren: and the earthworm, and feveral fhell animals, are hermaphrodite, each individual poffeffing the prolific powers of both male and female.

It is likewise remarkable, that all winged infects undergo three metamorphofes or changes of form: the egg is discharged from the body of the female in the fame manner as in other oviparous animals. By a wonderful instinct, these feemingly ftupid creatures uniformly depofit their eggs on fuch animal or vegetable fubftances as furnish proper food for the worm or caterpillar, that is to be hatched by the heat of the fun. The worm or caterpillar is the firft ftate. The bodies of caterpillars are soft and moist. They have no wings, and are totally deprived of the faculty of generation. After continuing for fome time in this reptile state, they are transformed into a chryfalis, which is drier and harder than the caterpillar. The chryfalifes of fome infects are naked, and those of others are covered with a filken web, fpun by the animals before their change is completed. In this ftate, many of them lie motionless, and seemingly inanimate, during the whole winter. When the fpring or fummer heats return, they burst from their laft prifon, and, from vile reptiles, are tranfformed into beautiful flies. In this perfect ftate they