The great law of nature, and in these countries the law of safety, is the rapid destruction of everything decaying, languishing, stagnant, and therefore injurious; its ardent purification in the crucible of life. And that crucible is, before all things, the insect. We must not blame its fury of absorption. Who thinks of accusing the flame? The flame is worthy of reproach only when it does not burn. And, in like manner, that living fire, the insect, is created to devour. Necessity demands that it should be eager, cruel, blind, and of an implacable appetite. It can have no sobriety, no moderation, no pity. All the virtues of man and of superior beings would be nonsense which one cannot even imagine. Can you conceive of an insect with the sensibility and tenderness of the dog? which should weep like the beaver? which should nourish the aspirations and poetry of the nightingale? or, finally, the compassionateness of man? Such an insect would be incapable; thoroughly unfit for its profession as the anatomist, dissector, and destroyer--we may say, more justly, the universal medium of nature, which, precipitating death by suppressing long periods of decay, in this way accelerates the brilliant return of life. Thus disembarrassed and free, it says, with a savage pleasure, "No maladies, no old age! Shame upon all decay! Hail to eternal youth! Let every creature die which lives beyond a day!" * * * * * Observe that the furious eagerness of the winged insects, which seem to be the agents of death, is frequently a cause of life. By an incessant persecution of the sick flocks, enfeebled by hot damp airs, they ensure their safety. Otherwise they would remain stupidly resigned, and hour after hour grow less capable of motion, gloomier and more morbid in the bonds of fever, until they could rise no more. The inexorable spur knows, however, the secret of putting them on their legs; though with trembling limbs, they take to flight; the insect never quits them, presses them, urges them, and conducts them, bleeding, to the wholesome regions of the dry lands and the living waters, where, growing discontented, their furious guide abandons them, and returns to the pestilent vapours, to its realm of death. In the Soudan, in Africa, a little insect, the Nâm fly, directs with a sovereign authority the migrations of the flocks. In the dry season it rages against the camel; it audaciously ventures into the ear of the elephant. The giant is resistlessly driven forward by its winged shepherds, to escape the fires of the south, and to seek the fresh winds of the north. On the other hand, the oxen, through its management, remain with their Arab master peacefully in the genial southern pastures.