CHAPTER V 



ABERRATIONS OF INSTINCT 



SO far as the Pelopaeus is concerned, my 

 part as an observer is concluded, a part 

 of no great interest, I am the first to admit, 

 if we limit its scope merely to the data which 

 it is able to supply. That the insect fre- 

 quents our dwellings, that it builds a mud 

 nest victualled with Spiders, that it weaves 

 itself a bag which looks as it it were cut 

 out of an onion-skin: all these details matter 

 to us but little. They may please the col- 

 lector who zealously sets down everything, 

 down to the nervation of a wing, in order to 

 throw a little light on his systematic ar- 

 rangements; but the mind nourished with 

 more serious ideas sees nothing in all this 

 but the food of an almost puerile curiosity. 

 Is it really worth while to spend our time, 

 the time which escapes us so swiftly, this 

 stuff of life, as Montaigne calls it, in glean- 

 ing facts of indifferent moment and of 

 highly contestable utility? Is it not child- 

 ish to enquire so minutely into an insect's 

 actions? Too many interests of a graver 

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