Author's Preface 



rustic ideas upon the upbringing of the off- 

 spring, talents are superfluous. Lycurgus 

 banished the arts from his republic on the 

 ground that they were enervating. In like 

 manner the higher inspirations of instinct 

 have no home among insects reared in the 

 Spartan fashion. The mother scorns the 

 sweet task of the nurse; and the psychic 

 prerogatives, which are the best of all, 

 diminish and disappear, so true is it that, 

 with animals as with ourselves, the family is 

 a source of perfection. 



While the Hymenopteron, so extremely 

 thoughtful of her progeny, fills us with 

 wonder, the others, which abandon theirs to 

 the accidents of good luck or bad, must seem 

 to us, by comparison, of little interest. 

 These others form almost the whole of the 

 entomological race; at least, among the 

 fauna of our country-sides, there is, to my 

 knowledge, only one other example of insects 

 preparing board and lodging for their 

 family, as do the gatherers of honey and the 

 buriers of well-filled game-bags. 



And, strange to say, these Insects vying In 

 maternal solicitude with the flower-despoi- 

 ling tribe of Bees are none other than the 

 Dung-beetles, the dealers In ordure, the 

 scavengers of the cattle-fouled meadows. 



vii 



