Inflammatory, a. Having the power of inflaming.
Infusion, s. The act of pouring in, instillation; the act of steeping any thing in moisture without boiling; the liquor made by infusion.
Injection, s. The act of casting in; any medicine made to be injected by a syringe, or other instrument, into any part of the body.
Innings, s. Lands recovered from the sea; term in cricket.
Inoculation, s. The practice of transplanting the small-pox, by infusion of the matter from ripened pustules into the veins of the uninfected.
Insect, s. Insects are so called from a separation in the middle of their bodies, whereby they are cut into two parts, which are joined together by a small ligature, as we see in wasps and common flies.
Insnare, v. To entrap, to catch in a trap, gin, or snare.
Instinct, s. The power which determines the will of brutes; a desire or aversion in the mind, not determined by reason or deliberation.
They who write on natural history cannot too frequently advert to instinct, that wonderful limited faculty, which, in some instances, raises the brute creation as it were above reason, and in others leaves them so far below it.
It has been remarked that every species of bird has a mode of nidification peculiar to itself; so that a schoolboy would at once pronounce on the sort of nest before him. This is the case among fields and woods and wilds; but, in the villages round London, where mosses and gossamer, and cotton from vegetables, are hardly to be found, the nest of the chaffinch has not that elegant, finished appearance, nor is it so beautifully studded with lichens, as in a more rural district; and the wren is obliged to construct its house with straws and dry grasses, which do not give it that rotundity and compactness so remarkable in the edifices of that little architect. Again, the regular nest of the house martin is hemispheric; but where a rafter, or a joist, or a cornice, may happen to stand in the way, the nest is so contrived as to conform to the obstruction, and becomes flat, or oval, or compressed.