THE NEST
To look at a house-fly as it performs its figure-of-eight dances in the air of our rooms, or as it buzzes against the window-pane, vainly endeavouring to dash its tender body through the firm and clear glassy wall—to mark how soon it comes into existence, and how soon its little day of life is gone—one would say it is a foolish and trifling thing to write the history of an insect's life; but any one who would thus speak must be ignorant of that which he declares to be folly and trifling. He cannot know the miracles of skill that insects, insignificant as they seem, are capable of performing; nor the astonishing lessons of wisdom which even man may learn from these minute and short-lived beings. So long as we are ignorant of any part of God's creation, we may very probably think light of it; but when we come to inquire into the things we have formerly despised, and will give a patient attention to what we before thought beneath our notice, the tone of our remarks will greatly alter. Now, we shall find in the meanest things formed by the Divine hand inexhaustible themes for wonder and praise, and innumerable proofs that the great Almighty power which built our round world, and countless worlds besides, which fixed them with a firm decree in an appointed course, has not been less displayed even in the formation of a tiny insect, which is this hour alive, and the next lost to being.
The telescope shows us what God has created in the innumerable millions of stars and suns which every clear night look down with gentle beams upon the earth; it shows us that the earth on which we dwell, compared to the worlds by which it is surrounded, is as a grain of sand to a mighty mountain. But the microscope, on the contrary, shows us what is almost more wonderful even than this; for it shows us that though the High and Lofty One who inhabits eternity has created all these vast systems of suns and stars, yet he has not thought it beneath Him to chisel the egg of an insect or to adorn the coat of a tiny caterpillar. Well might we pause and ask as we look now through the wonder-revealing tube of the microscope and then through that of the telescope—Was it not a greater evidence of power and wisdom to create, clothe, organize, and endow with the powers of life, a little atom which we can detect only by means of a powerful microscope, than to form even a great and mighty world? For our part, then, we think an insect's history as much a display of the wisdom and infinite power of the Creator as the history of such an enormous body as is the sun, or any of the large planets belonging to our system. However humble be the object which God has seen fit to create, let not any one think it beneath him to examine. The poet Thomson has written some pretty lines which we shall venture to transcribe, which, with far greater beauty of language than we can pretend to, set before us the same train of thought:—
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"Let no presuming impious railer tax Creative wisdom, as if aught was formed In vain, or not for admirable ends. Shall little haughty ignorance pronounce His works unwise, of which the smallest part Exceeds the narrow vision of her mind?" |
Animals, birds, reptiles, fish, and plants, have had their biographers, and ponderous books have been written to give us an introduction to their various families: so also have insects; although despised by many, they have been highly esteemed by a few; and if honours went by the size of books written about them, it might perhaps be shown that the insects can boast of great and closely-printed books taken up with nothing else but an account of them and their doings.
Perhaps there is another feeling about insects which ought to be mentioned beside the feeling of contempt; that is, the feeling of aversion. A great many people, ought we to write? a great many ladies and children, are ready to scream, and take to their heels if they see a poor "black beetle," racing in terror of his life for fear of them, and as both parties are equally frightened of one another it becomes very difficult to manage a reconciliation between them. At the sight of spiders some people are ready to faint away, and to see a little caterpillar creeping along with his magnificent coat of parti-coloured hairs, and with that funny gait which it is quite ludicrous to behold as he binds himself into a loop and walks after a fashion like no other earthly being, is enough to make their hair stand on end and their flesh to creep!