64 LONDON INSECTS 



'Glasses' have much improved since Pope wrote 

 these lines one hundred and fifty years or so ago, 

 but have brought us as yet no nearer an upward or 

 downward vanishing-point of possible life. 



Each increase of power of the telescope has, on the 

 contrary, only revealed fresh worlds beyond, and in the 

 microscope only brought us nearer something like 

 ocular demonstration that there is truth in the homely 

 lines which tell that 



' Little fleas have lesser fleas upon their backs to bite 'em, 

 And those fleas have other fleas, and so ad infinitum.' 



In whichever direction we look it is the same. More 

 knowledge of nature means more consciousness of life 

 all round us. 



If the exploring voyage of the Challenger has 

 proved any one thing more clearly than another, it is 

 that the old idea that ocean life ceased at a certain 

 depth has no foundation in fact. 



There is one link in the chain of life, and only one, 

 which Londoners have ample means of studying in the 

 open air the order of ' Insects.' Beasts, to live 

 naturally, require solitude and room to wander and 

 breed. Birds scarcely less. But for many of the most 

 interesting of the insects a single leaf is an estate, and 

 a park or garden in a square means space unbounded ; 

 and so, as might be expected, they swarm in all 

 directions in London as thickly as anywhere else. 



Perhaps, indeed, there is no place in the world in 

 which with good eyes and a little patience such a 

 curious collection of miscellaneous living insects from 



