UNDER THE MAPLES 



which we have little conception. All our powers 

 are tremendously exaggerated in these little people. 

 Their power makes them acquainted with the inner 

 molecular constitution of matter far more inti- 

 mately than we can attain to by our coarse chemical 

 analysis. Our world is agitated by vibrations, 

 coarse and fine, of which our senses can take in 

 only the slower ones. If they exceed three 

 thousand a second, they become too shrill for our 

 ears. It is thought that the world of sound with 

 the insects begins where ours leaves off. The 

 drums and tubes of insects' ears are very minute. 

 What would to us be a continuous sound is to them 

 a series of separate blows. We begin to hear 

 blows as continuous sounds when they amount to 

 about thirty a second. The house-fly has about 

 four thousand eye-lenses; the cabbage butterfly, 

 and the dragon-fly, about seventeen thousand; 

 and some species of beetles have twenty-five 

 thousand. We cannot begin to think in what an 

 agitated world the insect lives, thrilling and vibrat- 

 ing to a degree that would drive us insane. If we 

 possessed the same microscopic gifts, how would 

 the aspect of the world be changed! We might 

 see a puff of smoke as a flock of small blue butter- 

 flies, or hear the hum of a mosquito as the 

 blast of a trumpet. On the other hand, so much 

 that disturbs us must escape the insects, because 

 their senses are too fine to take it in. Doubtless 



fei 



