INSECTS (See Encycl.). A number of non-descript little animals was discovered by La Martiniere the naturalist when accompanying Perouse on his celebrated voyage of discovery. These animals he called insects, and to many of them he gave particular names. Of these we shall give his description in this place, leaving our readers, as he has left his, to arrange them properly according to the Linnæan classification.
"The insect, which is figured N° 1. inhabits a small Plate prismatic triangular cell, pointed at the two extremities, XXX. of the consistency and colour of clear brittle ice; the body of the insect is of a green colour, spotted with small bluish points, among which are some of a golden tinge; it is fixed by a ligament to the lower part of its small habitation: its neck is terminated by a small blackish head composed of three converging scales, in the form of a hat, and enclosed between three fins, two of them large and channelled in the upper part (A) and one small, femicircular (B). When it is disturbed, it immediately withdraws its fins and its head into its cell, and gradually sinks into the water by its own specific gravity. Fig. 2. represents it under side of the prism, shewing in what manner it is channelled, in order to allow free passage to the animal when it wishes to shut itself up in it. Fig. 3. represents the profile of the same. The movement carried on by the two larger fins, which are of a softish cartilaginous substance, may be compared to that which would be produced by the two hands joined together in the state of pronation, and forming, alternately, two inclined planes and one horizontal plane: it is by means of this motion that it supports itself on the top of the water, where it probably
bly feeds on fat and oily substances on the surface of the sea." Our author found it near Nootka, on the north-west coast of America, during a calm.
Fig. 4. represents a collection of insects, as our author calls them, consisting only of oval bodies, similar to a soap bubble, arranged in parties of three, five, six, and nine: among them are also some solitary ones. These collections of globules, being put into a glass filled with sea water, described a rapid circle round the glass by a common movement, to which each individual contributed by simple compression of the sides of its body, probably the effect of the re-action of the air with which they were filled. It is not, however, easy to conceive how these distinct animals (for they may be readily separated without deranging their economy) are capable of concurring in a common motion. "These considerations (says our author), together with the form of the animal, recalled to my mind, with much satisfaction, the ingenious system of M. de Buffon; and I endeavoured to persuade myself, that I was about to be witness to one of the most wonderful phenomena of Nature, supposing that these molecules, which were now employed in increasing or diminishing their number, or performing their revolutions in the glass, would soon assume the form of a new animal of which they were the living materials. My impatience led me to detach two from the most numerous group, imagining that this number might perhaps be more favourable to the expected metamorphosis. I was, however, mistaken. These I examined with more attention than the rest; and the following account is of their proceedings alone. Like two strong and active wrestlers, they immediately rushed together, and attacked each other on every side: sometimes one would dive, leaving its adversary at the surface of the water; one would describe a circular movement, while the other remained at rest in the centre; their motions at length became so rapid as no longer to allow me to distinguish one from the other. Having quitted them for a short time, on my return I found them reunited as before, and amicably moving round the edge of the glass by their common exertions."
Fig. 5. represents a singular animal, which has a considerable resemblance to a little lizard; its body is of a firm, gelatinous consistence; its head is furnished on each side with two small gelatinous horns, of which the two hindmost are situate the furthest inward: its body is provided with four open fan-like paws, and some appendages near the insertion of the tail, and terminates like that of a lizard: the ridge of the back is divided the whole way down by a band of a deep blue; the rest of the body, as well as the inside of its paws, is of a bright silvery white. It appears to be very sluggish in its motions; and when disturbed by the finger, merely turned itself belly upwards, soon afterwards resuming its former position. Fig. 6. represents it reversed. Martiniere caught it during a calm at the landing place on the Baffee Islands.
INSTITUTE is a name which has lately been substituted for school or academy. Formerly institution, in the propriety of the English language, was sometimes used as a word of the same import with instruction; and now institute is employed, especially by the admirers of French innovations, to denote what had hitherto been called an academy. When royalty was abolished in
France, it would have been absurd to continue the titles Royal Academy of Sciences, Royal Academy of Inscriptions, &c.; but instead of merely abolishing the word royal, and substituting national in its stead, it occurred to the fertile brain of Condorcet, to abolish the seven academies themselves, or rather to melt them all down into one great academy; to which was given the appellation of the