[LETTER IV.]
INJURIES CAUSED BY INSECTS.
DIRECT INJURIES.
In the letter which I devoted to the defence of Entomology, I gave you reason to expect, more effectually to obviate the objection drawn from the supposed insignificance of insects, that I should enter largely into the question of their importance to us both as instruments of good and evil. This I shall now attempt; and, as I wish to leave upon your mind a pleasant impression with respect to my favourites, I shall begin with the last of these subjects—the injury which they do to us.
The Almighty ordains various instruments for the punishment of offending nations: sometimes he breaks them to pieces with the iron rod of war; at others the elements are let loose against them; earthquakes and floods of fire, at his word, bring sudden destruction upon them; seasons unfriendly to vegetation threaten them with famine; the blight and mildew realize these threats; and often, the more to manifest and glorify his power, he employs means, at first sight, apparently the most insignificant and inadequate to effect their ruin; the numerous tribes of insects are his armies[106], marshalled by him, and by his irresistible command impelled to the work of destruction: where he directs them they lay waste the earth, and famine and the pestilence often follow in their train.
The generality of mankind overlook or disregard these powerful, because minute, dispensers of punishment; seldom considering in how many ways their welfare is affected by them: but the fact is certain, that should it please God to give them a general commission against us, and should he excite them to attack, at the same time, our bodies, our clothing, our houses, our cattle, and the produce of our fields and gardens, we should soon be reduced, in every possible respect, to a state of extreme wretchedness; the prey of the most filthy and disgusting diseases, divested of a covering, unsheltered, except by caves and dungeons, from the inclemency of the seasons, exposed to all the extremities of want and famine; and in the end, as Sir Joseph Banks, speaking on this subject, has well observed[107], driven with all the larger animals from the face of the earth. You may smile, perhaps, and think this a high-coloured picture, but you will recollect—I am not stating the mischiefs that insects commonly do, but what they would do according to all probability, if certain counter-checks restraining them within due limits had not been put in action; and which they actually do, as you will see, in particular cases, when those counter-checks are diminished or removed.
Insects may be said, without hyperbole, to have established a kind of universal empire over the earth and its inhabitants. This is principally conspicuous in the injuries which they occasion, for nothing in nature that possesses or has possessed animal or vegetable life, is safe from their inroads. Neither the cunning of the fox, nor the swiftness of the horse or deer, nor the strength of the buffalo, nor the ferocity of the lion or tiger, nor the armour of the rhinoceros, nor the giant bulk or sagacity of the elephant, nor even the authority of imperial man, who boasts himself to be the lord of all, can secure them from becoming a prey to these despised beings. The air affords no protection to the birds, nor the water to the fish; insects pursue them all to their most secret conclaves and strongest citadels, and compel them to submit to their sway. Flora's empire is still more exposed to their cruel domination and ravages; and there is scarcely one of her innumerable subjects, from the oak, the glory of the forest, to the most minute lichen that grows upon its trunk, that is not destined to be the food of these next to nonentities in our estimation. And when life departs from man, the inferior animals, or vegetables, they become universally, sooner or later, the inheritance of insects.
I shall principally bespeak your attention to the injuries in question as they affect ourselves. These may be divided into direct and indirect. By direct injuries I mean every species of attack upon our own persons, and by indirect, such as are made upon our property. To the former of these I shall confine myself in the present letter.
Insects, as to their direct attacks upon us, may be arranged in three principal classes. Those, namely, which seek to make us their food; those whose object is to prevent or revenge an injury which they either fear, or have received from us; and those which indeed offer us no violence, but yet incommode us extremely in other ways.