Some species--as, for example, the ants--experience so great a difficulty, that the captive, probably, would never effect its release but for the opportune assistance of some power which, from without, hastens to extricate it, to deliver it (so to speak), and separate it from the trammels of its swaddling-clothes. Fortunate difficulty! which creates the bond between the two ages, attaches the liberator to the child she has delivered, and herself begins its education and society! But, for the majority of insects, the liberator is no other than Nature. This mother, inexhaustible in tenderness and invention, gives to the little one the key which will open the barrier, pierce the prison, and introduce it to daylight and liberty. "What key?--and how?" say you. "How can this soft and fluid being contrive to seize upon a firm, compact tissue, frequently doubled and immured by the alluvial accumulation of a protracted winter?" The circumstance embarrasses _us_ greatly, but Nature is not troubled. Means of the utmost simplicity suffice her; she eludes, and sports with, the difficulty. The butterfly of the silkworm, for instance, at the critical moment finds a file--where?--in its eye! This eye, with numerous facets, has a fine diamond point, which files through and severs the silken prison. Another, the cockchafer, shut up underground, suddenly discovers that it is a perfect mechanician. Of its whole body it makes a lever. Its posterior extremity furnishes it with a strong-pointed auger. It sinks solidly, anchors, and makes fast. From this _point d'appui_ it derives an enormous force, and with its robust shoulders uplifts the heavy clod, enlarges the aperture, finds at length the light, extends its unwieldy apparatus of wings and wing-cases, and flies as a gnat. Another deformed (or shapeless) miner, the mole-cricket, would never reach the surface if, to reascend from the depth of the earth, it had not two enormous hands, or rather two powerful rakes, which open up its way. Though hideous, it is not the less sensitive to the influence of spring, but it takes the precaution of never exposing its strange figure save to the doubtful rays of the moon. Its plaintive cry singularly affects the female; she yields to it, and makes her appearance, but to return again into the night and confide to the protecting shade the hope of her posterity. A frail aquatic insect, the gnat, on this important day assumes the daring mission of the navigator. It makes fresh use of its demitted envelope, and turns it into a bark. In this it stands upright, extends its new wings for sails, glides along the wave, and very frequently without shipwreck reaches the shore; where, when dried, the same wings will bear it off to the chase and the pursuit of pleasure. In an hour it appears a complete master of all these novel arts. It is the peculiarity of love to know without having been taught.