io The Book of Bugs. 



confines of red blood and bones, lie orders of life where 

 our light is but darkness, and where the little that we 

 know is multiplied a millionfolcl by what there is to know. 

 The mammals of this world have been so assiduously 

 ticketed and labeled that the whole scientific world was 

 all of a twitter not long ago at the news that Sir Harry 

 Johnson had discovered a new quadruped, the okapi. It 

 seems to be a sort of variegated ass, and though there is 

 no great scarcity of variegated asses, the discovery of a 

 new kind was considered an event of such importance 

 that the yellow journals exploited it largely, the animal 

 having been tinted by nature with remarkable forethought 

 and adaptation to the three-colored process for the 

 illustrated Sunday supplements. Sir Harry had to go 

 to Central Africa to find this unlisted four-legged beast, 

 but if he had been looking for a six-legged beast that was 

 equally unlisted he need only have gone to Central Park 

 of a fine summer's day, and the chances are that his 

 cyanide bottle would have been stocked with two or three 

 creatures as pretty as the okapi and as absolutely un- 

 known. Besides, he would have got home in time to 

 dress for dinner. 



I don't pretend to guess how many millions of species 

 of insects are unnamed even. There is something about 

 the world ' million ' that confuses me. A hundred or 

 even a thousand I can form some sort of an idea of, but 

 to me a million means only a terrible lot, something 

 really painful in number, that makes me scowl and press 

 my lips together and say, " M //// Mercy! ' 



Well, there are probably several hundred times as many 

 as that of species of insects that the scientific men haven't 

 observed, to say nothing of us common people that can 

 only say to a bug, " Your features are familiar, but I 

 just can't quite speak your name." 



