CHAPTER X 



, THE RESIN-BEES 



A T the time when Fabricius^ gave the genus 

 •^ ^ Anthidium its name, a name still used 

 in our classifications, entomologists troubled 

 very little about the live animal; they worked 

 on corpses, a dissecting-room method which 

 does not yet seem to be drawing to an end. 

 1 hey would examine with a conscientious eye 

 the antenna, the mandible, the wing, the leg, 

 without asking themselves what use the insect 

 had made of those organs in the exercise of 

 its calling. The animal was classified very 

 nearly after the manner adopted in crystal- 

 lography. Structure was everything; life, 

 with its highest prerogatives, intellect, in- 

 stinct, did not count, was not worthy of ad- 

 mission into the zoological scheme. 



It is true that an almost exclusively nccro- 

 logical study is obligatory at first. To fill 

 one's boxes with insects stuck on pins is an 



^Johann Christian Fabriciiis (1745-1808), a notcJ 

 Danish entomologist, author of Systema entomologitt 

 (*775)- — Trunslator's Sole. 



301 



