Allow that the great duty of the insect tribe is to
cleanse the earth and atmosphere from countless impurities
noxious to the human race, how great a plague would our
benefactors themselves become were it not for the various classes
of carnivorous insects who prey upon them, and are in their turn
the prey of others! It is a grand principle of continual strife,
which keeps all and each down to their required level.
What a feast for an observant mind is thus afforded in a tropical
country! The variety and the multitude of living things are so
great that a person of only ordinary observation cannot help
acquiring a tolerable knowledge of the habits of some of the most
interesting classes. In the common routine of daily life they
are continually in his view, and even should he have no taste for
the study of Nature and her productions, still one prevailing
characteristic of the insect tribe must impress itself upon his
mind. It is the natural instinct not simply of procreating their
species, but of laying by a provision for their expected
offspring. What a lesson to mankind! what an example to the
nurtured mind of mail from one of the lowest classes of living
things!
Here we see no rash matrimonial engagements; no penniless lovers
selfishly and indissolubly linked together to propagate large
families Of starving children. Ail the arrangements of the
insect tribe, though prompted by sheer instinct are conducted
with a degree of rationality that in some cases raises the mere
instinct of the creeping thing above the assumed "reason" of man.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 176 of 334
Words from 46919 to 47198
of 89475
