but a breeze of wind, acting on the wings of the fly, turned round the wasp, with its burden, and impeded its progress. Upon this, it alighted again on the gravel walk, deliberately sawed off, first one wing, and then another, and having thus removed the cause of its embarrassment, flew off with its booty.

Here we have contrivance and re-contrivance; a resolution accommodated to the case, judiciously formed and executed, and, on the discovery of a new impediment, a new plan adopted, by which final success was obtained. There is, undoubtedly, something more than instinct in all this. And yet we call the wasp a despicable and hateful insect!

There is, I am well aware, a great reluctance in some minds, to admit that any of the lower animals can be gifted with a faculty superior to blind unreasoning instinct. It is imagined that this would be to confound man with the brutes, and thus to deprive him of that distinctive superiority on which he founds his strongest argument for the immortality of the human soul. Of such a consequence I have no fear. It is not on natural arguments that the Christian's hope of future happiness is founded, but on that gospel, which has 'brought life and immortality to light.' Yet, I freely admit, that the argument from natural religion is satisfactory as a proof of the coincidence of revelation with the rational expectations, and the anlaogical reasonings, of man. But these expectations and reasonings are founded on stronger grounds than that of the absence of every thing appproaching to reason among the lower animals, otherwise, I fear, they could not be readily sustained. Whatever may be their strength, however, it is delightful to know that our assurance comes from a higher source, and that we are not reduced, like one of the most enlightened and virtuous of heathens, to end all our anxious arguments on this most important subject, with the feeble and doubting conclusion, ' Quod si, in hocerro, libenter erro.'*

• Cicero.

SEVENTH WEEK-TUESDAY.

HYBERNATION OF INSECTS.-EGGS.

In attending to the state of animated nature in winter, as compared with that of summer, few things are more striking than the almost total disappearance, during the former season, of all the insect tribes. In the warmth and sunshine of the summer months, all nature was instinct with life; and the abundance and variety of the more minute animals could not fail to attract the observation, and excite the wonder, of all who have eyes to see. The bee, the dragon-fly, the butterfly, the gnat, and the midge, in all their varieties, with myriads of flies of other species, seemed to communicate life and enjoyment to the very air we breathe; while the worm, the beetle, the ant, the caterpillar, the spider, and innumerable other creatures, some of them too minute to be examined without the assistance of art, swarmed on every flower we plucked, and animated the very dust beneath our feet. Where now is all this busy world? Tribe after tribe, they have vanished from our view; and even in days of balmiest air, and brightest sunshine, we seek for them in vain. Has the breath of winter pierced through their tiny forms, and frozen the current of life at its source? And, if so, by what process of reproduction shall all their various species be reanimated in the returning spring? The inquiry is at once interesting and useful; and here, again, we shall have occasion to admire the inexhaustible resources of Divine intelligence.

Of some insect families, it is known, that all the individuals are destined to perish before the cold of winter arrives. The natural term of their existence is comprised within the span of a few months; and their periods of youth, of vigour, and of decay, nay, of resuscitation under new forms, and of the various stages of their second or even third state of exist ence, have all been accomplished during the season of genial warmth; so that they naturally cease to exist before the heat

which cherished them, and the food which sustained them, are withdrawn. Their modes of life will more properly form the subject of attention at another season; but at present we have to inquire into the provision of Providence, by which the various species are preserved, after the whole race has ceased to live.

As the principle of equivocal generation is nearly exploded from natural history, it will readily be conjectured that the Creator must have provided for the preservation of the future generations of these animals by means of their eggs; and this, in reality, is the case. There are various conditions, however, that require to be fulfilled before this could be successfully accomplished. Not to advert, at present, to the wonderful but familiar contrivance of an egg containing the embryo of the future animal, a contrivance which shall afterwards be considered, it is to be remarked that, in the present instance, the egg must be endued with the quality of preserving its principle of vitality for several months, in circumstances which would have proved fatal to the animal itself; that it must only produce the living creature when the wintry storms are past, and when those vegetable substances have begun to appear on which that creature can subsist; and, that it must be so situated, and so endowed, as to be able, when animated, to find its way to the open air, and to its natural food. If any one of these conditions were wanting, it is sufficiently apparent that the species must perish.

Now, let us take an instance, and see what actually occurs. I select the case of the gipsey-moth, which I abridge from the article Insect Transformations, in the 'Library of Enter. taining Knowledge.' The female of this insect has her body thickly covered with a soft down, of a hair-brown colour, apparently for the express purpose of enabling her to protect her eggs during winter; and she follows the impulse of her nature, in a manner well worthy of notice. Having emerged from her pupa-case in the month of August, she enjoys life for a few days, and then prepares for the propagation of her species, after which she quickly dies. She places herself on

the trunk of an oak or elm, invariably with her head downwards. Having made a bed or nest of down, by tearing it from her body, she lays an egg in it; and this egg being covered with adhesive gluten, attaches around it all the hairs of the down with which it comes in contact, and also sticks to the bark of the tree, from its being pushed home. Proceeding in this manner, she continues for several hours adding to the mass; but she does not, in general, finish the opération in less than two days, indulging in occasional rests. At intervals, she takes care to protect the eggs placed in the heap, which is made in a conical shape, with an exterior covering of the same down; and, it is not a little remarkable, that in the external coping, which is designed to keep out the winter rains, the hairs are carefully placed in a sloping direction, like the tiles on a house, or the pile of a wellbrushed hat, pointing downwards, towards the base of the cone. The eggs, which are deposited with so much care, are destined to abide all the pitiless pelting of the storms of winter; for, although they are laid in the beginning of har vest, they are not hatched till the elm, which is to furnish food to the future caterpillar, comes into leaf in the following spring. This covering of down, from the manner in which it is tiled and brushed smooth by the mother moth, not only protects them from wet, but, being one of the best non-conductors, keeps them safe from the injury which they might sustain from severe cold, or what might be more fatal, from sudden alternations of heat and cold.

In the instance now detailed, there are some things worthy of particular notice; and, as it is a fair specimen of the wonderful instincts of insects with reference to the preservation of the species during winter, it may be proper to make a few remarks on the subject. Let it be observed, first, that in the previous states of the insect, whether as a caterpillar or a chrysalis, it had no power of propagating its species. It is not till its last and most perfect stage that this faculty is bestowed; and it enters on that stage just in time to flutter awhile in the sunshine, and then to die before the cold of the

waning year interrupts its enjoyments, withers the vegetables on which it feeds, and chills its delicate frame; and in time, too, to lay its eggs, that they may weather the coming storms of winter, which the parent could not endure, and be hatched when the breezes of spring begin to breathe softly, and nature again proceeds to scatter her stores of food. It cannot be here said, either that the insect dies from the inclemency of the season, or that the hatching of the eggs is retarded by the deficiency of warmth; for the season is still genial, when the former, having fulfilled the intentions of nature, ceases to exist, and months of weather not inferior to the heat of spring, succeed the depositing of the latter. It is no other than a wise providential arrangement.

Another surprising feature of the instinct displayed by this moth (which, however, so far from being peculiar to the species, is only an instance of a general faculty affecting almost the whole insect creation), is the choice of the spot where she deposits her eggs. These eggs, when hatched, are destined to produce caterpillars, whose peculiar food is to be found in the leaves of the oak or elm. From all the trees of the forest, she, therefore, selects one or other of these as the place for depositing her precious gift to a future year, although it is not from them that her own means of subsistence are to be gathered; and, although, so far as we are able to judge there is nothing in her condition, as a moth, which could lead to the preference.

We have already spoken of the remarkable manner in which the gipsey-moth protects her eggs from the weather; but it may be proper to make an observation or two on the eggs themselves, applicable generally to all insect eggs, which are exposed to the storms of winter. The glutinous matter by which the eggs are united, when protruded from the insect, and which is so necessary for preserving them in a mass, and for fixing them to the spot, is found, contrary to the nature of many similar substances, to be insoluble in water, and therefore incapable of being affected by the copious rains to which they are destined to be exposed. But this