THE INSECT WORLD 





Zoologists have sometimes divided the past history of the 

 world into periods named after the dominant type of animal. 

 The age of fishes was followed by an age of reptiles, and that 

 by an age of mammals. Finally, for the last few thousand 

 years, there has been an age of man. Throughout an immense 

 period, starting before the dominance of the reptiles, insects 

 have been abundant. Though not large and conspicuous 

 enough to give their name to an age, they are at this moment 

 the only group of animals which disputes our dominance. 

 They are infinitely more numerous than the mammals either 

 in species or in individuals ; many more specimens of insects 

 can be found in and on an acre of ground than make up the 

 human population of the British Isles. In some parts of the 

 world, biting or disease-carrying insects may temporarily 

 drive man out, and much more often they largely determine 

 the nature of the plant cover and of the sort of animals which 

 live in it. 



There is one other respect in which insects seem to rival 

 man: their large and complicated societies are the only ones 

 which can be compared with ours. While they have excited 

 the wonder of mankind at least since the time of Solomon, 

 real understanding of how they work is only just being 

 reached. The ties which unite their societies and the laws 

 which they obey are so different from ours that our emotions 

 are not involved as they are apt to be when we study even the 



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