We shall now proceed to a description of insects, a subject replete¹ with endless difficulties. Insects are numerous, and form many species, and their mode of life is like that of the terrestrial animals and the birds. Some, like bees, are furnished with wings; others are divided into those kinds which have wings, and those which are without them, such as ants; while others, again, are destitute² of both wings and feet. All these animals have been very properly called “insects,” from the incisures or divisions which separate the body, sometimes at the neck, and sometimes at the corselet, and so divide it into members or segments, only united to each other by a slender tube. In some insects, however, this division is not complete, as it is surrounded by wrinkled folds; and the flexible vertebrae of the creature, whether situate at the abdomen³, or whether only at the upper part of the body, are protected by layers, overlapping⁴ each other; indeed, in no one of her works has Nature more fully⁵ displayed her exhaustless ingenuity⁶.