CHAPTER IX 



THE GEOTBUPES : THE PUBLIC HEALTH 



To complete the cycle of the year in the full-grown form, 

 to see one's self surrounded by one's sons at the spring 

 festivals, to double and treble one's family : that surely 

 is a most exceptional privilege in the insect world. The 

 Apids, the aristocracy of instinct, perish, once the honey- 

 pot is filled ; the Butterflies, the aristocracy not of in- 

 stinct, but of dress, die when they have fastened their 

 packet of eggs hi a propitious spot ; the Carabids, richly 

 cuirassed, succumb when the germs of a posterity are 

 scattered beneath the stones. 



So with the others, except amonpf the gregarious 

 insects, where the mother survives, either alone or accom- 

 panied by her attendants. It is a general law : the insect 

 is born orphaned of both its parents. Now, by an un- 

 expected turn of fate, the humble scavenger escapes the 

 stern destiny that cuts down the proud. The Dung-beetle, 

 sated with days, becomes a patriarch and really deserves 

 to do so, in consideration of the services rendered. 



There is a general hygiene that calls for the disappear- 

 ance, in the shortest possible time, of every putrid thing. 

 Paris has not yet solved the formidable problem of her 

 refuse, which sooner or later will become a question of 

 life or death for the monstrous city. One asks one's self 

 whether the centre of light be not doomed to be extin- 

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