Packard] DELATIONS OF INSECTS TO MAX. Go 



IN continuing these half-hour talks about insects, some 

 remarks upon the more direct relations of these little 

 beings to human interests may not be inappropriate. We 

 may, from our moral and intellectual heights, look down 

 upon the lower world of insects as did the gods and demi- 

 gods of old frona Olympus upon their half-brothers and 

 cousins-german on the plains below. For physically are 

 we not related to the insects? Remotely, it is true, but 

 still wc have perhaps branched off from a common stock, 

 the starting point some monad. Our blood differs in qual- 

 ity and not in kind ; our muscles are but repetitions in 

 structure of the flesh of insects ; and finall}', an insect 

 at the outset is but a drop of oil and albumen or proto- 

 plasm, and from what else does man originate? Allied as 

 he is also to the beasts and lower animals in being at times 

 under the control of fierce passions and animal propensities, 

 while morally and intellectually the noblest work of the 

 Creator, one effect of the recent advances in the science of 

 man, which indicate that his animal origin is a matter of 

 strong probability, will be to draw out his interest in the 

 humbler creatures, to lead him to deal with them more sym- 

 pathetically, to love his domesticated animals more wisely 

 and truly ; while he may not the less, by worship of his Cre- 

 ator and work for humanity, strengthen the diviner impulses 

 of his nature. 



" lie pr.'iyeth well, who lovcth well 

 Both niaa and bird and beast." 



Every true naturalist is an ex-officio member of the "Society 

 for the rrevcntion of Cruelty to Animals." He will not l)cat 

 his horse or dog any more than his own children. Rather 

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