284 EDGE OF THE JUNGLE 



neath, I saw a rainbow in the heart of the dead 

 tree. 



This rainbow was caused by a bug, and when 

 we stop to think of it, this shows how little there 

 is in a name. For when we say bug, or for that 

 matter bogy or bugbear, we are garbling the 

 sound which our very, very forefathers uttered 

 when they saw a specter or hobgoblin. They 

 said it bugge or even bwg, but then they were 

 more afraid of specters in those days than we, 

 who imprison will-o'-the-wisps in Very lights, and 

 rub fox-fire on our watch faces. At any rate 

 here was a bug who seemed to ill-deserve his 

 name, although if the Niblelungs could fashion 

 the Rheingold, why could not a bug conceive a 

 rainbow? 



Whenever a human, and especially a house- 

 human thinks of bugs, she thinks unpleasantly 

 and in superlatives. And it chances that evolu- 

 tion, or natural selection, or life's mechanism, or 

 fate or a creator, has wrought them into form 

 and function also in superlatives. Cicadas are 

 supreme in longevity and noise. One of our 

 northern species sucks in silent darkness for sev- 

 enteen years, and then, for a single summer, 

 breaks all American long-distance records for in- 



