two kingdoms so approach each other, as to render it impossible to say, where the one terminates and the other commences. These varied movements, in conformity to the wants of the leaves and roots, the sensibility of the stamina and the pistils, these loves and fecundations, these sleeping and waking hours confound all our reasonings. I could collect volumes, all having the same purport with these facts, which show that the hypothesis of Pythagoras, that nothing in nature is insensible, is not so absurd as at first sight most would deem it.

Cavillers may ask, why nature strews these beautiful ornaments so abundantly in the wild desert, in remote forests, on uninhabited isles, where no human footstep is impressed, where no human eye sees? I have seen the splendid nymphea nelumbo, spreading a cup of prodigious size and of the purest and most brilliant white on the surface of the pestilential lakes, in the dark and inundated forests of the Arkansas. Poisonous insects swarmed about them in countless millions. The huge moccasin snake basked upon their broad leaves, and the unwieldy alligator pursued its sports in the deep waters beneath them. Who knows, but the carrion vultures that wheel their drony flight above them, that these monsters of the fens, that these millions of insect tribes hostile to men, who live where man cannot live, take pleasure in beholding the splendid wonders of those dreary fens? If these glorious flowers have sensibility, form their unions, rear their families, and feel their solitary joys unwitnessed by man, cannot we discover new reasons for placing flowers in the desert?

LECTURE V.

INSECTS.

MIGHT not the ancients imagine that every thing in nature was sentient, when they saw the sensitive plant shrinking from the hand that approached it? I took note, says Bonnet, of one of these plants, which seemed to form the link between the animal and vegetable kingdom. A little beyond this sensitive plant, in a kind of cup, I saw a small body like a flower. As I attempted to touch it, the thing retreated and disappeared. When I retired, it came out of its cup, and again unfolded itself. I soon discovered another similar body, but larger and not inclosed in a cup. It was taken up by a little stem, the lower extremity of which was attached to the sensitive plant. I divided the animal lengthwise, into two parts. The one, that remained attached to the plant, pushed out a form like that which I had seen entire. The little branches became agitated, and propelled their extremities to some distance. The small animal passed them, and gently touched one of their number. The branch seemed to twist itself around the insect, and raised it towards the upper extremity of its stem. An aperture enlarged itself to receive the animal. It entered into a long cavity contained in the stem. It was there dissolved, and digested before my eyes; and, a moment afterwards, I saw the residue thrown out of the same opening. This singular production detached itself from the plant, and began to creep. The little branches performed the functions of arms and afterwards of legs.

From all these circumstances, I could not fail to discover, that what I considered at first a parasitic plant, was in fact a true animal. I turned to remark the portion I had cut off I discovered with surprise, that it had increased, and became an animal like the other.

My surprise was not diminished, when I saw these two animals transform themselves into little tufted trees. From the outside of the trunks, which had been the bodies of the animals, proceeded many branches. These branches shot forth smaller ones, which prolonged their extremities by a certain tremulous motion. The trunk remained attached to something, which supported it. This wonderful assemblage formed but a single body; and the nourishment, taken by one part, was successively communicated to all the rest. Finally, the whole assemblage decomposed itself, and each branch separated, to assume an independent and individual existence.

I repeated this operation a great number of times upon the same subject; and thus gave birth to a hydra more astonishing than that of Lerna. Divided lengthwise in the middle of the body, each became a monster with two heads. I divided many of them transversely, and placed the sections upon each other. They became engrafted, and only composed a single animal.

To this prodigy succeeded another. I turned them inside out, as we do a glove. The animal lived, grew and multiplied, as before. These animals, which multiply by budding and by scions, which may be engrafted and turned inside out, are a species of polypi. The species are exceedingly diversified. Many never change their place. Others divide spontaneously, and form beautiful bell-shaped flowers.

I have observed an analogous fact, appertaining to another branch of natural history. I had heard the fact asserted and denied, and I made the trial for myself. A long black hair from a horse's mane was left in a wooden trough, to soak in rain water, during the sultry days of August, for ten or twelve days. At the end of that time it had become white, and had acquired a protuberance at one extremity, like a head. It moved about, folded, and unfolded itself, showed sensibility when touched, and had become in fact that singular animal, of which naturalists, as far as I know, have taken no notice; but which farmers know well by the name hair-snake.

The science of insects is called entomology; and these animals are classed by naturalists in the eighth class of the animal kingdom. Their characteristics are, animals with a body without vertebræ, having legs with many joints, undergoing a double, and, some of them, a triple metamorphosis. They multiply by generation, and but once in their life. Their first state is that of a larva, or worm. From this, by different changes, they pass to the chrysalis state. After remaining in this condition for a length of time, conforming to the nature of their species, they undergo a transformation, which develops the perfect insect. This class is one of the most numerous, curious, and difficult to understand, of all the tribes of the animal kingdom. Linneus wrote upon entomology; but with too much diffuseness and want of method. The celebrated professor, Lamarck, has brought order to this science, and his arrangement is generally followed. It is divided into orders, sections, and genera. The orders are eight, the sections are thirteen, and the genera about a hundred and eighty. I should confound and perplex, and perhaps revolt my reader with the hard names, and numerous details, of this classification of a study which recommends itself rather to curiosity than utility. A few of the more prominent facts will show us, that providence has not passed over these singular races, some of them exquisitely beautiful, and some noxious and revolting, without impressing upon them indications of wisdom and benevolence.

What prodigies may be learned in studying the history of a swarm of bees! Who does not love to repose in the shade near their waxen realms, so deliciously aromatic, and listen to their soothing hum, as they arrive and depart in dark and streaming lines through the air? No associations can be more delightful, than those which gather round the thoughts, as the little plunderers are seen bringing home their tithes from every thing in nature that is beautiful and fragrant. They furnish the cheap wealth, medicine, and wine of the husbandman. Every rural establishment in our vast country should possess swarms of bees, established by a clear spring, a green carpet, and under the mulberry

shade, for the high and innocent pleasure of beholding them, and taking care of them, were not their culture a source of sure and great profit. Mazaldi, Swammerdam, Reaumur, Schirach, Bonnet, and Huber, in some sense consecrated their lives to the study of these little governments; and they have been sung in strains of the richest music by Virgil, Delille, and Thompson.

"Young girl endowed with beauty,' said Pythagoras, 'ask of the laborious bee, if flowers have no other use than to please the senses?' The invariable order established in these little governments, the unremitting industry with which each individual labours for the public good, the grand principle of utility which regulates every movement, offer the example of a perfect commonwealth. The genius of Montesquieu invented nothing so perfect, as a model of communities. All the dreams of political reformers are here realized in a living example. A queen, respectfully surrounded by fifteen or twenty thousand of her subjects, of which she is at once the monarch and the mother, legislates for her realm, so as to produce unlimited obedience and the most perfect order. Where she advances, the circle opens with the profoundest homage. For her they store their waxen cells; and if she dies without leaving a successor, the whole nation perishes; for the subjects immediately abandon their labours in utter discouragement. Why should they not? With their mother and their queen, perishes their hope of posterity, and the book of their history is closed. The philosophers, metaphysicians, moralists, politicians, who imagine that no intelligence remains on the earth, beyond human reason, are struck with surprise.

The ancients, including the philosophic Virgil, were ignorant that the queen is the mother of her people. This is obvious from reading the beautiful fable at the close of the Georgics, in which, because flies and other insects swarm in summer round a carcase, he evidently supposes that bees may spring from such an origin. A rural French academy, filled with learned men, incorporated by letters patent, provided with microscopes and other aids, and calling them