"Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home,
Your house is on fire, your children will burn;"

are in the larva state furious destroyers of other insects, and will gobble up aphides by the score in a very short time. The dragon-fly too stands conspicuous among the insect devourers, not only in its larva but in its perfect condition, and falls upon multitudes of insects, plucking off their wings, and with savage relish devouring their bodies. We are not, however, to suppose that the appetites of carnivorous insects are confined to insect-food. The blow fly lives upon and defiles by depositing its eggs in our butcher's meat. The cockroach will polish a bone as clean as, or cleaner than, any dog will, and, indeed, will consume almost anything that happens to come in its way. Lastly, we may not omit to mention, that some insects have to plunge their armed mouths into our flesh and that of other animals, and to slake their raging thirst in a draught of our life-blood: among which we will only enumerate the musquito, the gnat, and the flea. We need scarcely say, that insects are provided with proper organs of digestion.

Singular to add, some insects in the perfect state do not eat at all. The silk-worm moth, and the Ephemeræ, are amongst this number; they live so short a time, as not to require food. Some insects also possess a most extraordinary power of abstaining from food. There have been at different times wonderful tales related of human beings, who, in a supposed trance, have endured the privation of food for an extremely long time,—weeks, and even months. And more recently we have an account of an Indian who suffered himself to be buried alive, built over with bricks and mortar, and a great seal set upon the only opening to his tomb, a guard being also set; and, after the expiration of a certain time, before agreed upon, the sepulchre was opened, and he was taken out—alive! All this is extremely wonderful, if we could only feel certain that there was no deception in the case. But it is nothing to what can be adduced from the insect world. The ant-lion has been known to endure a fast of six entire months, and to be as lively as possible at their termination. An author quoted by Messrs. Kirby and Spence kept a spider in a sealed glass for ten months, at the end of which time, though shrunk in size, it was as vigorous as ever. And Mr. Baker relates that he once kept a beetle alive for three years without food of any kind whatever!

When we call to memory the intense voracity of the insect while a larva,—how insatiable its appetite, how extensive its ravages,—and contrast it with the perfect insect, we are struck with astonishment. Why is this, we ask, that in all cases insects eat less when they are fully developed, than when in their infancy and youth? It is as if a full-grown healthy man were to eat less than his little child a year or two old. The reason appears to be, that in the imago state no further changes (which consume a great deal of material, as may be imagined when we remember the loss of substance in every cast of the skin) are necessary; the insect only requires food sufficient to preserve its life and activity in the state to which it has come, and needs no laying up of stores of fat for future consumption. Fluttering awhile in glorious apparel, through a world of flowers and sunshine, the period of its life runs out, and its only further change is—to die, and return to its kindred dust.

But, before this takes place, one last duty devolves upon the insect, which, unfulfilled, would leave the world at its death with one link in the chain of creation broken off,—this is, to make provision for the continuance of its species. We have already said, that insects, as a general rule, have been, no doubt in wisdom, destined to deposit their eggs not knowing what is to come forth of them, and never enjoying that happiness which is granted to many other beings,—the happiness of parental love. Some most interesting exceptions to this rule will have also been mentioned, in which a mother's love for her young has been exemplified in a remarkable manner.

Yet, though denied this pleasure and privilege, the mother-insect exercises, as we have before seen, all the care and forethought of the most affectionate parent, in depositing its eggs, and in making such arrangements as will be most conducive to the happiness and well-being of its future progeny. We can scarcely say that in this it shows that it possesses anything like such a feeling as that of a parent towards its child. It takes the wonderful precautions, and performs the singular actions, which have been already in part recorded in our first chapter, in all probability without being aware of the reasons why it should do so. How can it tell that its future progeny will eat this food, or that food? How can the poor blow-fly, when it leaves its eggs on our food, be certain that it is appointing a suitable place for the birth-spot of its progeny? Why does it not select the green surface of the leaf, or the warm corner of the window, or the bare earth, for this purpose? We might say, perhaps, in this instance, that the insect is only choosing the place where it obtains its own food. But what shall we say when we find insects, such as the butterfly, depositing their eggs upon plants which they never frequent at any other time, and from which they never obtained a particle of food themselves? Some, for instance, deposit them on the nettle, although never tasting anything from this plant themselves, while the young which are to proceed forth from the eggs feed voraciously upon it.

We cannot, in any way but one, account for this forethought. The poor insect, left to itself, would undoubtedly deposit its eggs indifferently anywhere; and the result would be, that its young family, if hatched at all, would awake only to find themselves in a desert, without food, or hope of reaching any, and would soon perish. Need we say how it can be easily accounted for? Surely, only, because it is God who has instructed these humble creatures, enduing them, if not actually with the powers of foresight, at any rate with the instinct which impels them to proceed in such a manner as if they were thus endowed. By a most wonderful exercise of wisdom He has taught them to distinguish even between the different species of plants; and rarely, indeed, do we find that the insect commits a mistake, or selects a wrong or fatal birthplace for its young.

Insect history is full of such instances of the great Creators wisdom and love. Although they are not rendered conspicuous to every eye, they are not the less real, nor the less amazing. In our Life of an Insect, many have been the occasions when we have stopped to wonder afresh at continually new and more striking indications of His adorable goodness and power, as the different phenomena of insect-life have been paraded before us. Yet this is but a very minute portion of what really exists of the admirable and beautiful in the insect world. Not one volume, not a hundred volumes, would suffice to relate the interesting facts which connect themselves in various ways with the insect's life. The main features only have been developed, and these imperfectly. Such being the case, what a world of wonders is the great creation, were we to consider it only as peopled with insects! What pen could write their history; what tongue narrate the many marvels of their existence! Ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousand of thousands, surround us on every side, accompany us on our excursions, and visit us in our homes, fill the air with life, and the waters with creeping things.

The history of an insect's life impresses upon us one of the most consoling truths contained in the word of God. We may learn from the tale of God's wonders in the vegetable creation, we may find also in the history of birds, beasts, and fishes, innumerable proofs of His love, and care, and goodness to all. But these are creatures whose size in the main renders them conspicuous; too much so, as we might say, to be overlooked. "Ah! then,"—were there no insects, one might doubtingly exclaim, "God may take thought for these large creatures, while more minute beings would be beneath His notice. And so with me: God may order and arrange the great events in my life; but are not the little ones too small for Him to regard?" The life of an insect answers these doubts. It tells us, that though a being be only of the size of a grain of sand, or not larger than the full stop at the end of this sentence, God has supplied it with the most beautiful organs; has endowed it with life, and with the most wonderful instincts, thus manifesting that, in the words of Scripture, "His care is over all His works." If God, then,

"To whom an atom is an ample field,"