INSECT BEHAVIOR 



CHAPTER I 



THE INSECT WORLD AT CLOSE RANGE 



NOT so long ago my world was commonplace ; even dull at 

 times. Tranquil and uninteresting, until one day a tiny 

 voice broke the silence of my study. It led me from my 

 dusty chimney corner, dropped me suddenly into the new 

 and fevered world of insects, and there it left me. 



Who can tell how long this new world had lain before me un- 

 noticed, a world of tiny people within our own big world, fighting 

 out their destinies beneath our very feet? I found it a land of marvels 

 and excitement, where great geographical upheavals are but momen- 

 tary matters; where changes, rivaling those wrought by a million 

 years in our environment, occur from day to day, a land where there 

 is no uniformity of change. I found disorder and repose walking 

 hand in hand, neither more of one than the other, yet much of both. 

 I stopped; marveled, became fascinated, with this land so new and 

 mysterious, into which I could step without effort, from my study 

 door. 



There were jungles, immense ones, rank and tangled, grown with 

 gigantic trees whose bark was an armor of thorns. Myriad life 

 inhabited them, and a thousand different creatures prowled about 

 hunting one another. In the tree tops, along their swaying trunks 

 and in the tangles below, every living thing was fighting for exist- 

 ence. Were our ears attuned to the vibrations of this jungle, a terri- 



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