INSECTS AND CIVILIZATION 



mankind. Many and strange notions have prevailed 

 concerning the occult influence these little creatures 

 exert upon the life of man. Imagination personified 

 the winged denizens of the air in field and forest. There- 

 from may have been evolved the notions of fairies, 

 brownies, goblins, and divers other tiny personifications 

 of the weird and the supernatural. It does not seem 

 strange to one who knows the wise ways and works of 

 insects, and who has noted the close resemblances be- 

 tween the social habits of man and the commimal 

 methods and architecture of such insects as ants, bees, 

 and wasps, that the untrained fancy of ruder tribes 

 should have seen in them a miniature of man himself. 

 That these tiny, manlike creatures evolved from the 

 insect world should have been developed in course of 

 time into beings with occult power upon human desti- 

 nies will not appear improbable to the student of folk- 

 lore at least. 



This effect was increased by the hurtfulness of many 

 insects. The destructiveness of certain flies in their 

 larval form; the mournful waste wrought by locusts and 

 grasshoppers; the annoyances of irritating insects like 

 the gnat, flea, and mosquito, are well calculated to ex- 

 hibit the fearful forces latent within the insect world. 

 One of the best known of the ethnic deities of early 

 Scripture times was Beelzebub, the god and lord of 

 flies — a name which by natural transliteration is applied 

 to the devil, and for the most part by people ignorant 

 of its origin. The divine honors paid Beelzebub show 

 how early men sought to propitiate the supernatural 

 powers believed to lie behind destructive hordes of 

 insects. 



These conceptions were not limited to possibilities of 



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