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The entomologist does not indeed pretend to understand the language of Insects, for, as they all breathe through spiracles or [[insertion]] (thro' gills) [[/insertion]] branchiae [and none of them thro' their mouths], their mouths are everlastingly dumb. But from signs and tokens well known to him he can interpret their actions, and recognize at a glance what object they are pursuing, whether sport or love, or war, or food for themselves, or food for their future progeny, or the construction of habitations either for themselves, or for that future progeny which they are doomed never to behold. Under every stone, under every clod, and even under the most despised substances, there is a little world in miniature opened to his eyes. And there scarcely grows a plant but what contains in Nature's own hieroglyphs, a whole chapter [[insertion]] [volume] [[/insertion]] of Natural History written by the finger of the great author of our being."