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246 GENERAL REMARKS
confifts in a rage of making collections, in bringing together what
is beautiful or fingular, and ferves to amufe an empty curiofity,
little advantage is to be expected from their labours. The true
object in thefe refearches ought to be, to obferve the manner in
which the infects live, what qualities they poffefs, how they are
transformed, and what influence they have upon the general
economy of nature. How much remains yet to be difcovered in
thefe little animals, in whofe very fmallnefs nature fhows herfelf
fo great? Some of their fenfes, as that of hearing and {meiling,
moreover the functions of the antenne, the form of their eyes,
their love, their generation, their means of defence, and of pro-
viding for their different wants; all thefe are things that are as
yet but very imperfectly known. It is among the infects that
we perceive the moft extraordinary deviations from the common
courfe of nature. Thus we find that the aphides bring forth eggs
and living young ones feveral times following, after only having
been once impregnated by the male. Inthe genus pha/ene there
are fome of which the females are without wings, and never en-
joy the pleafure of flying except when they enjoy the embraces of
the male, that carries them into the air, as it were, to indulge the
rapture of love in the arms of zephyrs. Who is ignorant of the
fagacity, induftry, and regularity of the bees? Who would have
imagined that there are infects that re-produce their limbs, and
even their heads, when cut off? The curculio antiodontalgicus,
which has the power of allaying the tooth-ach ; the me/o¢ maya/is,
ufeful in hydrophobia; the /ytta veficatoria, which draws blifters ;
the
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