BEES, BUTTERFLIES, AND CATERPILLARS 201 



ruthless way is needful to hold the balance of 

 warring animal and plant life. 



It is difficult for a naturalist to hold views of 

 orthodox Christianity on the benevolence, pity, 

 and loving-kindness, the recognised attributes of 

 tiic Creator of all life. 



To watch, as I love watching, hour after hour, 

 the life of such insects as ants and ant-lions, wasps 

 ;i:id mantis, is to know that, whatever the pur- 

 pose, the method of control of life and death in the 

 animal and insect world seems one long horror of 

 cruelty, beside which man's cruelty is trivial. 



Primitive men and women are occasionally as 

 cruel and perhaps as unintentionally cruel as 

 animals and insects. Possibly the mantis likes 

 its food alive because it is tender ; this was ccr- 

 t;ui>]y the reason which induced the Abyssinians 

 to lu;.vc their banquets of living ox llesh, and the 

 Fan cannibal to cripple his prisoners by breaking 

 their arms and legs, yet leaving them alive, to 

 ;/ecoine tender by soaking in a running stream. 



I only came across one variety of bee in Angola, 

 and this to my cost had a painful sting. I hap- 

 pcncd to be stalking an animal through some 

 sli- ub where these busy little insects, resenting my 

 piXoencc, stung me just as I was firing at a sable. 



The delightful type of bee that has no sting, 

 which I have seen in Northern Rhodesia, has not 

 extended its gentle sway as far south as Angola. 



Has any one thought of breeding stinglcss bees 

 by selection, 1 wonder; and have they succeeded? 

 One might go even further, as far in fact as the 

 harassed Nik official, wlu\ when asked if he had 



