Natural History 537 



particularly well suited for transferring germs, such as those of 

 typhoid fever, from place to place, and it thus brings the microbes 

 of the garbage heap to its next feeding-place, our dinner-tables. 

 There is a long list of diseases in which insects play an important 

 part typhus fever and Lice, sleeping sickness and Tsetse Flies, 

 relapsing fever and Lice, and many others. Many insects also 

 affect the domestic animals, for example the "bot-flies" which 

 cause severe boils and other disorders in cattle. 



Such examples out of the list serve to show some of the 

 complex inter-relations between man and Insects, and to indicate 

 some of the aspects of the struggle for existence. Man's enemies 

 are innumerable; he tames the wild beasts, and domestication 

 brings its own penalty, for a sucking insect wipes out a whole 

 herd ; he exterminates great flesh-eating animals that would rival 

 him, but a common house-fly brings microscopic germs to his table 

 and spreads death through his cities. It is hardly too much to say 

 that the tendency of injurious insects to prolific multiplication is 

 a continual menace to civilisation, and this should lead us to attach 

 increasing importance to the preservation of the numerous in- 

 sectivorous birds which maintain the balance of Nature. But this 

 subject will be discussed in a special article dealing with Inter- 

 relations. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



BALLARD, Among the Moths and Butterflies. 

 BASTIN, Insects : their Life-histories and Habits. 

 CARPENTER, Insects: their Structure and Life. 

 EDWARDES, TICKNER, The Lore of the Honey-Bees. 



FABRE, Insect Life, The Life of the Fly, The Life and Love of the Insect, etc. 

 LATTER, The Natural History of some Common Animals. 

 LUBBOCK, Ants, Bees, and Wasps. 

 LUTZ, The Field Book of Insects. 

 MAETERLINCK, The Life of the Bee. 



MIAX.L, Injurious and Useful Insects and Life-history of Aquatic Insect*. 

 SHARP, Cambridge Natural History (two volumes on Insects). 

 SLADEN, The Humble-Bee. 

 WHITE, Ants and their Way*. 

 VOL. ii 16 



