1931] The Age of Insects 33 



Or we follow a bee as it leaves its hive and visits flower after flower 

 and when it has gathered its load of sweets it takes a "bee line" for 

 the apiary and when it gets there it goes directly to its own home with- 

 out any mistakes and we talk very wisely and knowingly about the 

 ''homing instincts of the bee, " but do not be led into believing that we 

 really know anything about it. Because I am afraid that about all 

 we know is to laugh at the poor Swiss peasant who paints the fronts 

 of his hives in fantastic design so that his bees will find the right hive. 

 Perhaps he laughs best who laughs last and the Swiss beekeeper may 

 be right after all. Who knows? 



When we contemplate the marvels of colonial life among the in- 

 sects and the paucity of our knowledge of the warp and the woof of 

 the intricate pattern that they make, we are filled with admiration 

 of the blind Huber who taught us so much of the psychology of the 

 bee. The intricacy of the problem is appalling but when we consider 

 the benefits that might accrue to the beekeeper by their solution we 

 are more inclined to buckle down to work and renew our efforts to 

 solve them. 



No wonder we feel like exclaiming with Maeterlinck: "The in- 

 sect does not belong to our world." The other animals, even the plants, 

 notwithstanding their mute existence and the great secrets which they 

 jealously guard, do not seem wholly strangers to us. In spite of 

 everything we have a certain feeling of terrestrial kinship with them. 

 They may surprise, nay, astonish us, but they fail to upset the very 

 foundations of our concepts. The insect, on the other hand, displays 

 something that seems incongruous with the habits, the morals, the 

 psychology of our globe. Apparently it comes from another planet, 

 more monstrous, more vigorous, more demented, more atrocious, 

 more infernal than ours. Vainly does it seize upon life with an au- 

 thority and a fecundity unequaled here below; we can not accustom 

 ourselves to the idea that it is part of the scheme of that nature of 

 which we fondly believe ourselves to be the favorite children. With 

 this amazement and this failure to understand is mingled, no doubt, a 

 certain instinctive and profound feeling of dread imparted by these 

 beings so incomparably better armed and equipped than ourselves, 

 these containers as it were of compressed energy and activity which we 

 vaguely feel to be our most mysterious enemies, our final competitors, 

 and perhaps our survivors. . 



