THE HARMAS 15 



the little land-animal, which lives in constant touch with 

 us, which provides universal psychology with documents 

 of inestimable value, which too often threatens the pub- 

 lic wealth by destroying our crops. When shall we have 

 an entomological laboratory for the study not of the 

 dead insect, steeped in alcohol, but of the living insect; 

 a laboratory having for its object the instinct, the habits, 

 the manner of living, the work, the struggles, the propa- 

 gation of that little world with which agriculture and 

 philosophy have most seriously to reckon? To know 

 thoroughly the history of the destroyer of our vines 

 might perhaps be more important than to know how this 

 or that nerve-fiber of a Cirriped ^ ends ; to establish by 

 experiment the line of demarcation between intellect and 

 instinct; to prove, by comparing facts in the zoological 

 progression, whether human reason be an irreducible 

 faculty or not : all this ought surely to take precedence of 

 the number of joints in a Crustacean's antenna. These 

 enormous questions would need an army of workers; and 

 we have not one. The fashion is all for the Mollusc and 

 the Zoophyte.^ The depths of the sea are explored with 

 many drag-nets; the soil which we tread is consistently 

 disregarded. While waiting for the fashion to change, 

 I open my harmas laboratory of living entomology ; and 

 this laboratory shall not cost the ratepayers one farthing. 



1 Cirripeds are sea-animals with hair-like legs, including the 

 Barnacles and Acorn-shells. — Translator's Note. 



2 Zoophytes are plant-like sea-animals, including Star-fishes, Jelly- 

 fishes, Sea-anemones, and Sponges. — Translator's Note. 



