82 THE TRIBES ON MY FRONTIER. 



into all sorts of striking patterns. I suppose each species 

 confines itself to one particular kind of leaf. There is no 

 detail, in short, so insignificant as not to furnish these 

 mechanical geniuses with an opportunity of displaying 

 originality. If one lays on mud with its jaws, another will 

 do it with its feet or antennae. If one, when it secures a 

 large caterpillar, gets astride it and travels like a rider 

 on the original velocipede (vide illustration in Webster's 

 Dictionary), its cousin, not to be like it, will turn round 

 and back towards its nest, dragging its prey after it. 



But any one who wants more instances will find it 

 pleasant and profitable to collect them for himself. It is 

 sweet, cxperlo crede, to pry into the private ways of these 

 little people, and discover the diminutive secrets which 

 they take such pains to hide. And it is also a most 

 healthful means of appeasing some erring appetites of the 

 mind. Wholesomely satisfied with this, I feel no hunger for 

 any other occult science, nor much thirst for scandal about 

 my human neighbours. In fact, I glut upon these creatures 

 the perverse craving which is in us all to know what we 

 are not meant to know. And any person who is largely 

 endowed with that talent for research in other people's 

 concerns, which constitutes a man (or woman, even !) a 



