present volume,-or rather half volume, for we infer from the abrupt manner in which it closes, that the paging will extend through another portion of the work. We must, however, express our regret that such delay should be suffered to occur in bringing out the volumes, and that they should appear with such gross marks of negligence on the part of the Editor. The exorbitant price put upon these detached instalments of the work, can be justified only by their finding a very limited sale, which we hope is not the case. We are anxious to see the sequel with as much despatch as may be practicable; and we should then recommend the publishers to employ a competent editor to re-cast the whole heterogeneous mass in an abridged form, with the requisite corrections, and the indispensable addition of a good index. The work, which is at present a mine of valuable but ill-arranged information and document, will by that means form, what at present it is not, a library book, not more indispensable to the man of science and the statist, than interesting and delightful to the general reader. Art. III. The Library of Entertaining Knowledge. Insect Architecture. 12mo. pp. 420. London. 1830. 6 WE have long intended to advert to this entertaining series of publications, which is upon the whole admirably got up, and does great credit to the Editor. The rapid multiplication of these popular libraries', by rival publishers and trading committees, defies, however, all attempt to bestow upon them a specific examination, while it seems to call loudly for some strictures of a general nature, which we mean very speedily to offer to the notice of our readers. In the mean time, we have been so highly pleased with the volume before us, that we deem it an act of justice to make it the subject of a distinct, but brief article. The present season has, indeed, been a rich harvest to the entomologist. Our gardens have teemed with insect life. The various corporations of masons, carpenters, weavers, leaf-rollers, tent-makers, upholsterers, delvers, and miners, have been in most active operation; and certain young entomologists of our acquaintance, whose sharp eyes are better adapted than ours to penetrate the mysteries of the insect world, have found a source of ever-new amusement and wonder in the discoveries they have made, and the transformations they have witnessed, far transcending any that are recorded in Ovid's Metamorphoses. It is our fixed opinion too, that, in thus exercising their faculties of observation, they are quite as usefully employed as in construing hexameters, or in committing to memory Propria quæ mari bus. We agree with the Compiler of this delightful volume, when he remarks, that The exercise of that habit of observation which can alone make a naturalist—“ an out-of-door naturalist", as Daines Barrington called himself—is well calculated to strengthen even the most practical and merely useful powers of the mind. One of the most valuable mental acquirements is the power of discriminating among things which differ in many minute points, but whose general similarity of appearance usually deceives the common observer into a belief of their identity. Entomology, in this point of view, is a study peculiarly adapted for youth. According to our experience, it is exceedingly difficult for persons arrived at manhood to acquire this power of discrimination; but, in early life, a little care on the part of the parent or teacher will render it comparatively easy.' p. 12. power It would, perhaps, be going too far to assert, that this of discrimination, exercised upon material objects cognizable by the senses, will necessarily lead to the formation of a sound, discriminating judgement in practical matters and moral questions. And yet, nature has prescribed, that the first lessons of education should have for their object, to exercise and develop the faculty of observation, as the best introduction to the cultivation of the higher intellectual and active powers. The outof-door study of entomology is recommended moreover by other considerations. It has this advantage over another delightful source of pure amusement,-botanical observation,—that it has a more direct moral tendency, being more intimately connected with the exercise of tender and benevolent feeling. It is as useful as it is entertaining, in correcting that entomophobia which is so natural to children of all ages, and in converting what is otherwise a source of simple annoyance, into a fund of instructive gratification. It is the teacher's fault, too, if, while thus intent on - Nature in some partial shape, They let the Author of the whole escape ; The Scriptures send us to the ant, the spider, and even the lily and field-flower for moral instruction; and the Psalmist, in calling upon all the works of God to unite in shewing forth his praise, does not omit in the enumeration, reptiles and insectsthings that creep and things that fly. "If you speak of a stone", says St. Basil," if you speak of a fly, a gnat, or a bee, your conversation will be a sort of demonstration of His power whose hand formed them; for the wisdom of the workman is commonly perceived in that which is of little size. He who has stretched out the heavens, and dug up the bottom of the sea, is also He who has pierced a passage through the sting of the bee for the ejection of its poison." To the justice of the following additional observations recommendatory of the study, we can bear testimony. 'If it be granted that making discoveries is one of the most satisfactory of human pleasures, then we may without hesitation affirm, that the study of insects is one of the most delightful branches of natural history; for it affords peculiar facilities for its pursuit. These facilities are found in the almost inexhaustible variety which insects present to the entomological observer. As a proof of the extraordinary number of insects within a limited field of observation, Mr. Stephens informs us, that, in the short space of forty days, between the middle of June and the beginning of August, he found, in the vicinity of Ripley, specimens of above two thousand four hundred species of insects, exclusive of caterpillars and grubs,-a number amounting to nearly a fourth of the insects ascertained to be indigenous. He further tells us, that among these specimens, although the ground had, in former seasons, been frequently explored, there were about one hundred species altogether new, and not before in any collection which he had inspected, including several new genera; while many insects reputed scarce, were in considerable plenty. The localities of insects are, to a certain extent, constantly changing; and thus, the study of them has, in this circumstance, as well as in their manifold abundance, a source of perpetual variety. Insects, also, which are plentiful one year, frequently become scarce, or disappear altogether, the next :-a fact strikingly illustrated by the uncommon abundance, in 1826 and 1827, of the seven-spot lady-bird (Coccinella septempunctata), in the vicinity of London; though, during the two succeeding summers, this insect was comparatively scarce, while the small two-spot lady-bird (Coccinella bipunctata) was plentiful.... 'Were it no more, indeed, than a source of agreeable amusement, the study of insects comes strongly recommended to the notice of the well-educated. The pleasures of childhood are generally supposed to be more exquisite, and to contain less alloy, than those of riper years; and if so, it must be because then every thing appears new and dressed in fresh beauties; while, in manhood and old age, whatever has frequently recurred, begins to wear the tarnish of decay. The study of nature affords us a succession of "ever-new delights," such as charmed us in childhood, when every thing had the attractions of novelty and beauty; and thus, the mind of the naturalist may have its own fresh and vigorous thoughts, even while the infirmities of age weigh down the body.' pp. 3-7. There is a still higher purpose to which the study of this volume of nature's library may be rendered subservient, especially when aided by the powers of the microscope. It introduces us to a world within a world, which overwhelms the understanding with its infinite multiplicity of minute existences, almost as much as the discoveries of astronomy oppress the 6 mind with the idea of boundless power and immensity. On either hand, there seems to extend, equally beyond the ken of the senses, an infinity of magnitude or of minuteness, above and beneath all that is visible to man, or calculable by his understanding. Dr. Chalmers has well pointed out, how the discoveries of the microscope, serve to counterbalance, as it were, those which have been made by the telescope. The one leads us to see a system in every star'; the other, 'to see a world in every atom.' And the latter suggests to us, 'that within ' and beyond all that minuteness which the aided eye of man 'has been able to explore, there may be a region of invisibles ' and that, could we draw aside the mysterious curtain which 'shrouds it from our senses, we might there see a universe within the compass of a point so small as to elude all the 'powers of the microscope, but where the wonder-working God 'finds room for all the exercise of his attributes, where he can raise another mechanism of worlds, and fill and animate 'them all with the evidences of his glory.' ; Even without the aid of the microscope, however, enough may be seen of insect life, to awake perplexing wonder at the lavish exercise of infinite power and skill upon these sentient and all but reasoning atoms. To what end has been called into existence this profusion, and, as it seems to us, redundance and superfluity of life? The nobler ranks of the animal creation seem to speak the purpose for which they have been made, in the qualities by which they are rendered subservient to the use, or sustenance, or delectation of their human lord; and if the wilder animals now withhold their allegiance, and dispute possession of some portions of his territory, we can understand that this is but a part of the derangement which man's own disobedience has introduced. But, with the exception of the bee, the silk-worm, the kermes, and a few other useful labouring tribes, the insect creation seems to exist for the humiliation and annoyance of man, rather than for his use or pleasure. In many parts of the earth, they either appear as a destructive scourge, occasionally laying waste the most fertile tracts, or exist as an endemic pest, sometimes driving man before them as a fugitive from their minute but mighty armies. And in our own more favoured land, the wasp and the hornet, the various hosts of what are familiarly called blight-insects, the moth and the book-worm, the blow-fly with its progeny, the bug and the flea, not to speak of those which seem specially appointed to execute judgement upon uncleanliness,―are capable of becoming very serious disturbers or plunderers. Now it is impossible to avoid * Chalmers's Astron. Discourses, p. 113. losing ourselves in the mazes of speculation, when we attempt to pursue the thought, For what purpose do these various nuisances to man exist? Have they been superinduced, as it were, upon the primeval creation, as a punishment? Or do they constitute, in a way unknown to us, a part of the general scheme of the Divine beneficence? Do they originally belong to a perfect creation, or have they been gendered by the imperfection and corruption entailed upon it? In the beauty and exquisite finish of their tiny forms, in the perfection of their mechanism, in their general conformity to the laws of the animal economy, in their never-failing and admirable instinct, they bear all those characters of transcendent wisdom, skill, and opulence, which are imprinted upon the other works of the Creator. If, then, viewed individually, they appear nothing less than his workmanship, must we not conclude, that they answer some purpose worthy of the exercise of His creative power, although, like the sirocco, the malaria, the lightning, or the flood, they are noxious to human life? Creation has, like Revelation, its mysteries; and we have often thought, that the page of nature is more inscrutably mysterious, more baffling to the understanding, than any doctrine of the written word. In fact, although "the invisible perfections of God may be clearly seen in the things that are made", so as to leave the idolater" without excuse ", who adores not their Creator, it is by an exercise of faith only, that we understand aright, that "they were framed by His word, and that the things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear",-that matter has had no other origin than the will of God. There is then scope and occasion for the exercise of faith, in the contemplation of material phenomena; and it may be presumed, that one purpose at least which they were designed to subserve, in connexion with our limited knowledge, was to put our reason upon trial, and to afford occasion for that moral exercise of reason which consists in faith. In Nature, as in Revelation, there are difficulties which, on every side, make us feel the limitation of our faculties. There is a glory which all but the blind can behold, but it is encircled with a darkness which repels the too daring approach of the intellect. There 'is,' to use the words of the profound Pascal, 'light enough 'for those whose main wish is to see, and darkness enough to 'confound persons of an opposite character.' To those readers whose thoughts have never been employed upon the subject, it may appear strange, that we should class among such mysterious difficulties, the facts of insect existence. But an entomologist, like an astronomer, must either be a devout believer,-and Young says, An undevout astronomer is mad', |