It can never be too strongly impressed upon a mind anxious for the acquisition of knowledge, that the commonest things by which we are surrounded are deserving of minute and careful attention. The most profound investigations of Philosophy are necessarily connected with the ordinary circumstances of our being, and of the world in which our every-day life is spent. With regard to our own existence, the pulsation of the heart, the act of respiration, the voluntary movement of our limbs, the condition of sleep, are among the most ordinary operations of our nature; and yet how long were the wisest of men struggling with dark and bewildering speculations before they could offer anything like a satisfactory solution of these phenomena, and how far are we still from an accurate and complete knowledge of them! The science of Meteorology, which attempts to explain to us the philosophy of matters constantly before our eyes, as dew, mist, and rain, is dependent for its illustrations upon a knowledge of the most complicated facts, such as the influence of heat and electricity upon the air; and this knowledge is at present so imperfect, that even these common occurrences of the weather, which men have been observing and reasoning upon for ages, are by no means satisfactorily explained, or reduced to the precision that every science should aspire to. Yet, however difficult it may be entirely to comprehend the phenomena we daily witness, everything in nature is full of instruction. Thus the humblest flower of the field, although, to one whose curiosity has not been excited, and whose understanding has, therefore, remained uninformed, it may appear worthless and contemptible, is valuable to the botanist, not only with regard to its place in the arrangement of this portion of the Creator’s works, but as it leads his mind forward to the consideration of those beautiful provisions for the support of vegetable life, which it is the part of the physiologist to study and admire[128].
[128] “Insect Architecture,” vol. i. p. 9. London: Charles Knight & Co., Ludgate St. 1845.
This train of reasoning is peculiarly applicable to the economy of insects. They constitute a very large and interesting part of the animal kingdom. They are everywhere about us. The spider weaves his curious web in our houses; the caterpillar constructs his silken cell in our gardens; the wasp that hovers over our food has a nest not far removed from us, which she has assisted to build with the nicest art; the beetle that crawls across our path is also an ingenious and laborious mechanic, and has some curious instincts to exhibit to those who will feel an interest in watching his movements; and the moth that eats into our clothes has something to plead for our pity, for he came, like us, naked into the world, and he has destroyed our garments, not in malice or wantonness, but that he may clothe himself with the same wool which we have stripped from the sheep. An observation of the habits of these little creatures is full of valuable lessons, which the abundance of the examples has no tendency to diminish. The more such observations are multiplied, the more we are led forward to the freshest and the most delightful parts of knowledge; the more do we learn to estimate rightly the extraordinary provisions and most abundant resources of a creative Providence; and the better do we appreciate our own relations with all the infinite varieties of Nature, and our dependence, in common with the ephemeron that flutters its little hour in the summer sun, upon that Being in whose scheme of existence the humblest as well as the highest creature has its destined purposes. “If you speak of a stone,” says St. Basil, “if you speak of a fly, a gnat, or a bee, your conversation will be a sort of demonstration of his power whose hand formed them, for the wisdom of the workman is commonly perceived in that which is of little size. He who has stretched out the Heavens, and dug up the bottom of the sea, is also He who has pierced a passage through the sting of the bee for the ejection of its poison.”
If it be granted that making discoveries is one of the most satisfactory of human pleasures, then we may without hesitation affirm, that the study of insects is one of the most delightful branches of natural history, for it affords peculiar facilities for its pursuit. These facilities are found in the almost inexhaustible variety which insects present to the curious observer.
There is, perhaps, no situation in which the lover of nature and the observer of animal life may not find opportunities for increasing his store of facts. It is told of a state prisoner under a cruel and rigorous despotism, that when he was excluded from all commerce with mankind, and was shut out from books, he took an interest and found consolation in the visits of a spider; and there is no improbability in the story. The operations of that persecuted creature are among the most extraordinary exhibitions of mechanical ingenuity; and a daily watching of the workings of its instinct would beget admiration in a rightly constituted mind. The poor prisoner had abundant leisure for the speculations in which the spider’s web would enchain his understanding. We have all of us, at one period or other of our lives, been struck with some singular evidence of contrivance in the economy of insects, which we have seen with our own eyes. Want of leisure, and probably want of knowledge, have prevented us from following up the curiosity which for a moment was excited. And yet some such accident has made men Naturalists, in the highest meaning of the term. Bonnet, evidently speaking of himself, says, “I knew a naturalist, who, when he was seventeen years of age, having heard of the operations of the ant-lion, began by doubting them. He had no rest till he had examined into them; and he verified them, he admired them, he discovered new facts, and soon became the disciple and the friend of the Pliny of France[129]” (Réaumur). It is not the happy fortune of many to be able to devote themselves exclusively to the study of nature, unquestionably the most fascinating of human employments; but almost every one may acquire sufficient knowledge to be able to derive a high gratification from beholding the more common operations of animal life. His materials for contemplation are always before him.
[129] Contemplation de la Nature, part ii. ch. 42.
The silk-worm is a species of caterpillar which, like all other insects of the same class, undergoes a variety of changes during the short period of its life; assuming, in each of three successive transformations, a form wholly dissimilar to that with which it was previously invested.
Among the great variety of caterpillars, the descriptions of which are to be found in the records of natural history, the silk-worm occupies a place far above the rest. Not only is our attention called to the examination of its various transformations, by the desire of satisfying our curiosity as entomologists, but our artificial wants incite us likewise to the study of its nature and habits, that we may best and most profitably apply its instinctive industry to our own advantage.
It has been well observed by Pullein, a writer on this subject, that “there is scarcely anything among the various wonders which the animal creation affords, more admirable than the variety of changes which the silk-worm undergoes;” but the curious texture of that silken covering with which it surrounds itself when it arrives at the perfection of its animal life, vastly surpasses what is made by other animals of this class. All the caterpillar kind do, indeed, pass through changes like those of the silk-worm, and the beauty of many in their butterfly state greatly exceeds it; but the covering which they put on before this mutation is poor and mean, when compared to that golden tissue in which the silk-worm wraps itself. They, indeed, come forth in a variety of colors, their wings bedropped with gold and scarlet, yet are they but the beings of a summer’s day; both their life and beauty quickly vanish, and they leave no remembrance after them; but the silk-worm leaves behind it such beautiful, such beneficial monuments, as at once to record both the wisdom of their Creator and his bounty to man.”
We may without impropriety, here introduce the following truly beautiful comparison of the shortness of human life, as well as in illustration of this part of our subject, as evidenced in the May-fly.