The Life of the Grasshopper 



various ways of making history, the surest 

 way Is to do harm to others/ 



Nobody asks after the Dung-beetle and 

 the Necrophorus," Invaluable scavengers 

 both, whereas everybody knows the Gnat, 

 that drinker of men's blood; the Wasp, that 

 hot-tempered swashbuckler, with her poi- 

 soned dagger; and the Ant, that notorious 

 evil-doer, who. In our southern villages, saps 

 and Imperils the rafters of a dwelling with 

 the same zest with which she devours a fig. 

 I need not trouble to say more : every one 

 Vv^ll discover In the records of mankind 

 similar instances of usefulness ignored and 

 frightfulness exalted. 



The massacre Instituted by the Ants and 

 other exterminators Is so great that my erst- 

 while populous colonies In the enclosure be- 

 come too small to enable me to continue my 

 observations; and I am driven to have re- 

 course to Information outside. In August, 

 among the fallen leaves, in those little oases 

 where the grass has not been wholly scorched 

 by the sun, I find the young Cricket already 

 rather big, black all over like the adult, 



* For the author's only essay on Ants, cf. The Mason- 

 bees: chap. vi. — Translator's Note. 



' Or Burying-beetle. — Translator's Note. 



322 



