331 ment; but poisonal so comes in aid of its lacerating power,— liquid poison, contained in an attached bag, from which, on pressure by a mechanical contrivance, it is ejected into the wound at the moment of its infliction. This deadly weapon is a bee's sting. We are shown next the blood-drawing stiletto of a gnat. We inspect it with an unaided eye. It seems to us a needle, solid, pointed, fine as a hair. We see it in the microscope, and in lieu of a simple needle, we behold a compound of several pieces, some of which are barbed. These are the piercers, while the sheath which encloses them is the sucker, which completes the apparatus.* But enough of these wounding weapons; and, hark! the orchestra is beginning. We hear a mingled strain of sounds harmonious proceeding from stringed instruments and drums; insect instruments of mechanism no less curious and complete than those we have been lately inspecting. We cannot now look into their structure, but while our ears are being regaled by their music, not all of harmonious character, but replete with pleasant associations, we must employ our eyes on the concluding exhibition of this our gallery. All is ready; not exactly for "dissolving views," but for emerging pictures. Now, ladies and gentlemen, we are seated. The canvas, a * See, for a more detailed description of most of the above-mentioned objects, the works of Réaumur, Swammerdam, Burmeister, and the volumes of 'Insect Architecture' and Miscellanies.' 332 EMERGING PICTURES. "What! (do you piece of small dimensions, hangs before us. exclaim) what is there to see in that? a dirt-coloured, patternless fragment of damp-looking rag, or paper-or what we know not-full of folds and creases!" Have patience, friends, for a few minutes only, and that patience will be recompensed. Now, see there! The canvas, as if by magic, grows larger by at least five times, as if stretched upon a framework; its folds and creases gradually disappear; upon its surface, hitherto a clouded dirty white, appears the dawning of varied hues and forms. Patches become visible of dingy red, and white, and blue, and brown, and black, and buff, mingled confusedly as on a much-used painter's palette; but see now, with each moment, how these masses gather clearness. Spots, plain and eye-like, bars, rich shadings, and pencilled tracery, come forward and arrange themselves in regular form and order; each colour assumes fresh brilliancy; and here and there a glancing of metallic lustre adds a finish to the whole. One picture is complete! But what do we see now? The beautiful tableau on which we have been looking would seem after all to have been but the reverse of a yet richer painting—the reverse, more properly, of one leaf, as of a double screen. Now it is unfolded, and we have before us, not one, but a pair of resembling pictures, wherein masses of glowing scarlet and purest white, the two prevailing colours, are contrasted brilliantly by a ground intensely black, as of blackest velvet, bestrewn partially with particles as of glittering gold-dust. EMERGING PICTURES. 333 Our tableau-truly a tableau vivant-is that presented by the wings of a butterfly-those of the "Admirable" (Atalanta), as they grow in size and put on their colours before the eye fortunate enough to see the process of their first expansion. A dozen more such tableaux successively present themselves, each, like the last, emerging, and displaying endless variations in design, in touch, in style, in colouring. Some are light and airy as a day of spring; some, gay as summer; some, rich and glowing as the autumn landscape; some, grave and sombre as the wintry forest, but, like that, presenting graceful forms and delicate tracery, brown and branching. Now, with the orchestra's concluding strain, the last picture has emerged, a curtain drops, and the gallery is to close. about NATURE is now daily locking up from observation, although in no spirit of a miser, more and more of her vegetable treasure, and therewith has hidden from our view nearly all of those insect myriads which filled the summer air. This dearth comparatively of outward objects of interest inclines, or in a measure drives, us to seek for others of a kind not palpable to sight; and as the decline of life, with the failure of its active energies, affords greater leisure, and should excite increased desire to SPRINGS OF OUTWARD MOVEMENTS. 335 look within ourselves, so the decline of the year gives time, and naturally leads us to inquire into the nature of those inward springs by which are set in motion all the outward activities which have formed, hitherto, the chief objects of our notice. By the animating principle of the insect world, we do not, of course, mean that of mere vitality, common alike to animal and plant, but that endowment of perceptive and apparently judging mind which directs the former in its various operations.-Instinct shall we call it? Reason? or a combination of both? This is a question which, according to the observation of a distinguished naturalist, can never be resolved with absolute certainty, except by the person who should be permitted to reside some time within the head of an animal, without assuming its identity; or hardly even by a person so situated, seeing how imperfectly we can define, and discriminate between, our own varied or compound springs of action. That those of all animals, insects included, are compound also, made up of instinctive together with other principles, is a notion to which, however, we must incline, in common with many observers of better judgment than our own. Others,* indeed, to whom we must certainly concede the same superiority, assign to animals instinct only, making of them mere machines, mere instruments adapted to the performance of a certain number of actions, just as a barrel-organ is constructed to play a certain number of tunes ;—a theory, this, hardly con * Descartes, Dr. Virey, &c. |