LONDON INSECTS 109 



have played and still play in the creation and sup- 

 port of the world as we now live in it has been 

 a theme for many pleasant writers. Whole island 

 groups, described by sailors who have seen them as 

 heavens on earth, owe their beginnings to the work of 

 the little Coral Polyps, who are responsible too, in all 

 probability, for the present varied coast-lines of large 

 tracts of continents. There are families of plants, some 

 of rare beauty, which we are told would disappear 

 entirely but for the busy Bees which, forcing them- 

 selves in and out in search of the honey baits placed 

 there to tempt them, carry the fertilising dust to the 

 seed-vessels, which must otherwise have dropped 

 useless. 



But the chapters which are to tell of the influence of 

 insects on social and political history have yet to be 

 written. With justice done to the subject they should 

 be very interesting. Flies, Lice, and Locusts did, as 

 we all know, a good deal to help Moses in his struggle 

 for Hebrew independence ; and Wasps and Hornets, 

 when Jordan had been crossed, fought on the side of 

 Israel, 'forerunners of the host.' Pyrrhus, at the 

 height of his successes, raised a siege because he 

 could not stand the Mosquitoes, which made his camp 

 unbearable. 



' If " ifs " and " ans " were pots and pans, 

 There 'd be no work for tinkers' hands.' 



A great many things might have been told differently 

 in Roman history though it is not easy just now to 

 say exactly how if Pyrrhus and his Greeks had added 



