54 



mouse, toad, or predacious beetle. Besides, an insect's life 

 is mostly of too short a duration to allow it to gain any 

 experience, especially in those insects which have a complete 

 metamorphosis, for even if experience were gained in the 

 earlier stages, it could scarcely be of use in the later ones. 

 Then, again, an insect can hardly have any knowledge of, 

 and therefore any fear of, death itself. What can an insect 

 know of death ? The carnivorous beetles that live by the 

 death of other creatures, though they continually see death, 

 can scarcely recognise that their own end will also soon 

 come. They cannot apply the idea of death to themselves, 

 neither can the burying beetles, when engaged in hiding the 

 body of a dead animal. Besides, what is death to an insect ? 

 I do not believe that the natural death of an insect is ever a 

 painful disunion. In the great majority of cases I believe 

 that death to an insect either comes swiftly and suddenly, as 

 when it falls a prey to some other creature, or steals gradually 

 over it, as when an insect dies of cold or desiccation. In no 

 case do I believe there can be any foreboding. 



This is possibly also the case even with the more highly 

 organised animals. 



Of course, we know that insects are destroyed in vast 

 numbers by those mammals, birds, reptiles, and insects 

 which feed on them, and perhaps in far greater numbers by 

 insect parasites. But I do not believe that an insect has 

 this knowledge, and therefore, though surrounded by so 

 manv dangers, it has no fear of them. While an insect has 

 life I maintain that its life is a joyous one, though there 

 seems to be some melancholy exceptions, such as the poor 

 creatures which the butcher bird impales on a thorn. 



There is another and very different factor — our old friend 

 the survival of the fittest — which exercises a great influence 

 on the enjoyment of life among wild animals and insects. 

 The weakling, the physically unfit, and the aged all soon die 

 in one way or another, so that those creatures which retain 

 life are the stronger and more perfect individuals, which 

 consequently are more capable of enjoying life. 



Therefore, it seems to me that the terrors which many 

 people appear to believe haunt the wild animal, and make 

 its life one of misery, have in reality little, if any, existence 

 at all. Now, with regard to an animal's enjoyment of life — 

 I mean the higher animals. I put it in this way : The fact 

 is, an animal does not wony. It is extremely watchful, and 

 the moment danger is perceived it takes measures to escape. 

 But when danger is not present the animal enjoys its life 



