PREFACE 



IN the following pages I have endeavoured to 

 place before my readers, in as simple and 

 non-technical language as the subject will permit, 

 some account of the most striking and interest- 

 ing features of Insect Life. I have endeavoured 

 to show the important aspect which the study 

 of insects has assumed, more particularly in 

 their intimate connexion with the prosperity 

 or adversity of mankind. How intimate that 

 connexion is, for good or ill, the general public 

 have hardly yet realized, in spite of the oft- 

 repeated warnings of our leaders of scientific 

 research. Surely the fact that out of a popula- 

 tion of 300,000 souls once living on the shores 

 and islands of the great and beautiful lake 

 Victoria Nyanza, less than 100,000 remain, the 

 rest having perished within the last six years 

 from sleeping sickness, a disease solely trans- 

 mitted from one victim to another by the bite of 

 certain flies, should bring home to us all the very 

 great economic importance of the study of insect 

 life. 



While so far as possible I have in the space 

 at my command given an account of some of the 

 more remarkable and interesting phenomena of 



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