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walls of their refidence with a fort of vifcid fubstance or line them with filk.

The period of their change into chryfalids or nymphs is fixed. Some change in May, fome in June; others in July, August and September. The time of emerging from this state is also regulated. Some remain in it only twelve days, while others continue fifteen, fixteen or twenty. Some do not get free from their prifon fo foon, but are detained there three weeks or a month; others even two months, others fix, others nine, ten, and even fome a whole year; as the Phalana Abfynthii. It is eafy then to conceive that infects muft iffue from their cones in different months of the year. We find them ap pearing in the months of February, March, April, May, June, July, and Auguft, and even in November and December. Some infects have this remarkable property, that they produce two broods that if fue from their prifon at two different seasons of the year, and prefent themselves on the theatre of the world; for it deferves particular attention, that they never come forth, but at the time when there are plants and leaves fufficient to furnish them with food. Without this wife ordination of the providence of God, thefe little creatures would perish at their birth.

May I not now be allowed to afk if thefe transfor mations can be the effect of chance? If they were, is it poffible that there could be fo much regularity and order in the different particulars neceflary to operate fuch wonderful metamorphofes ? Whatever is the effect of chance is fubject to no fixed, no determinate order. To day it operates in one way, to morrow in another, but here all is regular without the fhadow of variation. Who is it then who has taught thefe infects to accomplish what is neceffary,

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each according to its fpecies, for paffing from one ftate to another? How do they know that in order to defend themselves, they have need of a cone more or less strong according to the greater or lefs degree of delicacy in their conftitution? Whence comes it that thefe animals, without the aid of reason, are found folded in their cones, with fo much art, that however narrow their manfion, they have enough of room, although were their members extended, three times the space would not be fufficient to contain them? From whom do they receive that fagacious forefight, which prompts them to take the proper measures for fecuring themfelves against external injuries? Who hath inftructed them to choose the most safe and proper places for undergoing their changes? What artift has taught them, to weave their various webs, in which the chryfalis is as foftly laid as if it were on down? By what means are they informed of the precife time when it is neceffary to conftruct their habitations and to retire to them. Whence comes it that the period ⚫ of remaining in their cones is fo regulated that they never leave them except in the feafon when they are fure to find food? I cannot but acknowledge in all this, diftinct traces of the boundless wifdom of the Creator. No, a blind caufe could not operate fuch wonders; it must be infinite, and fovereign intelligence and fince infects are incapable of so many perfections, it can be no other than a Deity who has created them, and who governs them by his Providence.

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CHAP. VIII.

OF THE SEXES OF INSECTS.

MODERN philofophers as I have already remarked have well obferved that infects are produced by generation. The experiments they have made on this fubject, have even taught them to distinguish the males from the females, and they have defcribed the marks by which they are to be known. The detail of these marks is the fubject of this Chap

ter.

In the first place the male is distinguished from the female by its fize. He is generally fhorfer and more flender than the female, which is undoubtedly the effect of wifdom in the Creator. The females being obliged to carry a great number eggs, it was neceffary that they fhould be larger and thicker than the males that they might have room to lodge their eggs.

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They are alfo diftinguishable by their antennæ. Those of many males are pectinated, of the females plain. Lifter observed that the males of fpiders have eight eyes with knobs at the extremities of the antennæ which the females have not. The antennæ of fome other infects are diftinguished in the fame way. Thofe of the male are smaller, fhorter, and more oppofite to each other.

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The wings are a third discriminating mark be tween the male and female. In fome fpecies the male only is furnished with them, the female either wants them altogether or has them very fhort. In other fpecies where both fexes have wings, there are fome which bear on thofe wings the characters of their fex. On thofe of the male are perceived fmall fpots which are not found on those of the female.

Infects which infert their eggs into the bark of trees, into the earth, into the fubftance of leaves, or into other infects, are furnished with a tube longer or fhorter for the purpose of penetrating to the place where they wish to depofit them. This tube, which ferves as a paffage to the eggs, affords another mark of diftinction between the fexes. As the male has no occafion for it, the Creator has bestowed it only on the female.

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We discover the fexes likewife often by their colours. The beauty of the male generally exceeds that of the female, his colours being more brilliant and fhewy. This rule however is not without exception, for the females are fometimes more beautiful than the males.

Laftly, they are diftinguishable by the found of their voices. This feems to have been bestowed on fome infects folely to procure them the means of approaching each other for the purpose of generation: and therefore the male alone has organs proper for producing a fmall found in order to attract the female. This rule however like the former is not general. There are fpecies of infects in which both fexes are provided with the organs neceflary for producing this found.

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It is not without reason that God has thus impreffed marks of distinction on the different fexes of animals. He has provided in this way for their multiplication, to which the male as well as the female are incited by an inftinct fo natural, that they fuffer if they do not indulge it. It cannot be doubted that this is the immediate operation of the Deity; on this point the Scripture is decifive. After having related the creation of man, it adds that "God crea"ted them male and female, that he bleffed them, "and commanded them to increase and multiply, "and replenish the earth." GEN. 1,27,28. Shall we fay that this law refpects man only, and that infects are excepted from it, becaufe there is no mention made of them? the contrary will appear evident from the feventh Chapter of the fame book. God irritated against the human race, refolved to deftroy them by the waters of the deluge. But as this could not be done without exterminating, at the fame time, all the terreftrial animals, he commanded Noah to take a pair of each fpecies that they might replenish the world anew. Of every clean beaft, fays "he, thou shalt take to thee by fevens, the male "and his female; and of beafts that are not clean σε by two, the male and his female. Of fowls "alfo of the air by fevens, the male and the female." and why?" to keep feed alive upon the face of all "the earth." GEN. VII. 2,3. That infects are com→ prehended in the number of these animals is evident. In the feventeenth day of the fecond month * Noah and his family entered into the ark; they • and every beaft after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and 'every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every fort. unto Noah, into the ark, two wherein is the breath of life. in, went in male and female

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And they went in and two of all flesh, And they that went of all flefh as God

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