196 THE ENTOMOLOGIST’S RECORD. 
and the cochineal aphis (now supplanted by aniline dyes), I cannot call 
to mind one insect that is of any benefit to man. 
‘«« Aven when the perfect insect exhibits bright colours or pleasing 
patterns, as in butterflies or beetles, it is on so small a scale that the 
effect almost requires to be looked at through a magnifying glass, and 
even then is paltry compared to the effulgence of birds or the beauty of 
certain mollusca, and at any rate is more than balanced on the debtor 
side by the mischief wrought in the larval stages ; while in the bugs 
the contemplation of a certain garish brightness of colour or quaint- 
ness of pattern is turned into loathing by the foetid smell. 
‘There are, it is true, traitors in the camp—insects that try to be 
on our side by devouring other insects, but if with the disappearance 
of the rest of the class those too became extinct, we could dismiss them 
with perfunctory thanks, remembering how in the secondary epuch 
dragonflies from over encouragement grew to the ineonvenient length 
of two feet, and probably presumed on their size and strength to attack 
the small mammals of the period. 
“To those of my readers who are not acquainted with tropical 
countries and their insect fauna, this declamation may appear strained 
in its tenor, but a prolonged residence in any part of Africa produces 
in one’s mind a sweeping hatred of the insect race, a hatred not un- 
mixed with apprehension, a dread lest by some unforeseen turn in the 
world’s affairs, the existing checks might fail to keep these creatures 
under, and that some awful development of insects might threaten 
man’s very existence by direct or indirect attack—warfare with his 
body or the attempted destruction of his food supplies. 
“Ts this hatred ill-founded when we think of the ravages wrought 
by the Phylloxera on our vines; by the tsetse-fly on the horses and 
cattle with which we are attempting to open up Africa; by the jigger, 
or burrowing flea, which may make whole nations lame; by the mos- 
quitoes, which introduce all manner of diseases into the skin and render 
existence intolerable at all times in the low-lying parts of Africa, and, 
during the summer, in the northern regions of the globe; by the blue- 
bottle fly, which spreads blood-poisoning ; the ‘fish’ insects, which 
destroy our books and pictures ; the lice; the termites, which mine our 
houses; the warrior ants, which drive us out of them; the tiny ants, 
which get into our sugar and jam; the ephemerides that rise from the 
river at night, extinguish an uncovered lamp, fall into our soup and 
permeate it with a filthy taste; the kungu fly of Lake Nyassa, which 
rises in choking clouds and simulates a fog; locusts, that ravage con- 
tinents and produce wide-spread famine ; beetles, that bore into timber, 
destroy hides, whose grubs eat away the roots of flowers and food 
plants; innumerable moths and butterflies whose caterpillars rival the 
locusts in the destruction of crops; bugs, which suck the juices of 
valuable shrubs ; hornets, which inflict an almost deadly sting on no 
provocation ; the thousand unnamed insect pests with which the 
gardener and agriculturist have to deal under the name of ‘ blight’ ; 
and last in the innumeration, but not least in its horror, the cockroach, 
the foulest of all insects, the very sight of which in its mad, malicious, 
lustful flight, on some hot breathless night in Africa or India, around 
one’s room, fills one with more abject terror and shuddering revulsion 
than the entry of any wild beast of our own class, or human enemy, or 
visitor from the other world ? 
