as useless endeavour. In those countries where they abound, their discriminations are so numerous, and their colour so various, that every thicket seems to produce a new animal. The same serpent is often found to bring forth animals of eight or ten different colours and the naturalist who attempts to arrange them by that mark, will find that he has made distinctions which are entirely disowned by Nature: however, a very considerable number might be added to enlarge the catalogue; but having supplied a general history, the mind turns away from a subject where every object presents something formidable or loathsome to the imagination. Indeed, the whole tribe resemble each other so nearly, that the history of one may almost serve for every other. They are all terrible to the imagination, all frightful to behold in their fury, and have long been considered as a race of animals between whom and man there is a natural antipathy. CHAP. I. Of Insects in general. HAVING gone through the upper ranks of nature, we descend to that of insects, a subject almost inexhaustible, from the number of its tribes and the variety of their appearance. Those who have professedly written on this subject, seem to consider it as one of the greatest that can occupy the human mind, as the most pleasing in animated nature. "After an attentive examination," says Swammerdam, " of the nature and anatomy of the smallest as well as the largest animals, I cannot help allowing the least an equal, or perhaps a "superior, degree of dignity. If, while we dissect "with care the larger animals, we are filled with "wonder at the elegant disposition of their parts, to what a height is our astonishment raised, "when we discover all these parts arranged in the "least in the same regular manner! Notwith standing the smallness of ants, nothing hinders "our preferring them to the largest animals; if we "consider either their unwearied diligence, their "wonderful strength, or their inimitable propensity "to labour. Their amazing love to their young is "still more unparalleled among the larger classes. They not only daily carry them to such places as may afford them food; but, if by accident they are killed, and even cut into pieces, they, with the utmost tenderness, will carry them away piece |