USEFUL INSECTS 



Relations of Man to Insect World.— But Few Species Useful to Man.— Little Trace of 

 Domestication. — Honey-bees : their Origin ; Reasons for no Selective Work ; Habits 

 of the Species.— Silkworms : Singular Importance to Man ; Intelligence of Species.— 

 Cochineal Insect. — Spanish Flies.— Future of Man relative to Useful Insects. 



Although the relations of man to the insect world are 

 prevailingly those of hostility, there are a few of these 

 multitudinous creatures which have been more or less com- 

 pletely adopted into his great society. Although not more 

 than half a dozen out of the million or more species in this 

 subkino-dom have thus been broucrht to the uses of civiliza- 

 tion, the forms are interesting not only for what they give, 

 but for the promise of further contributions when this great 

 problem of winning help from the insect world receives 

 adequate consideration. 



As a whole, the insects are not well fitted to serve 

 the needs of man. Owing to certain peculiarities in their 

 organic laws they, fortunately for ourselves, are very limited 

 in size. Although some of them afford savory food and 

 are occasionally eaten by savages, and even by civilized 

 folk when pressed by hunger owing to the famines which 

 the invasions of these animals occasionally produce, they 

 can never be of any value as sources of provisions, except 

 through the stores which they accumulate in the manner of 

 the bees. All that we have won, or are likely to win, from 

 this realm is from the filaments which the creatures spin, 

 the wax or honey which they accumulate, the coloring or 



