The opening of XI. THE VARIOUS KINDS OF INSECTS
CHAP. 1. (1.)—THE EXTREME SMALLNESS OF INSECTS.
We shall now proceed to a description of the insects, a subject replete with endless difficulties;[3] for, in fact, there are some authors who have maintained that they do not respire, and that they are destitute of blood. The insects are numerous, and form many species, and their mode of life is like that of the terrestrial animals and the birds. Some of them are furnished with wings, bees for instance; others are divided into those kinds which have wings, and those which are without them, such as ants; while others, again, are destitute of both wings and feet. All these animals have been very properly called “insects,”[4] 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.