of philosophy desired (and still desire) to admit, can be un- 

 known to none who is acquainted with animals, not alone- 

 from hearsay and from philosophic writings, but from his 

 own intercourse with them, from his own observation, or 

 from the works and teachings of real and unprejudiced 

 observers. For such observation furnishes continually, and 

 with overwhelming fullness, the most startling and incontro- 

 vertible examples and proofs, that between the thinking,, 

 willing, and feeling of men and of animals there is the most 

 striking similarity, and often a mere difference of degree. 

 But even among comparatively educated people it has been 

 little thought and felt that this rule applies also to those 

 classes of animals which appear to be so far below us as 

 those treated of in the present work ; our intellectual vanity 

 will have to submit to bitter humiliation and rebuke in con- 

 templating the proceedings or the societies and deeds of 

 these unjustly despised, but yet, in spite of their minuteness^ 

 wonderful creatures. But the greater the humiliation from 

 the one point of view, the greater from the other is the 

 satisfaction arising from the renewed proof of the sublime 

 unity of Nature ; and hence that the same intellectual or 

 spiritual principle, call it reason, understanding, soul, in- 

 stinct, or propensity, pervades the whole organised series,. 

 even if in the most manifold modifications and variations,, 

 from below to above, from above to below. 



Starting from this last standpoint, the author has not 

 thought it necessary to widen the circle of his observations 

 over the whole of the comparatively narrow and yet infinitely 

 wide and rich sphere of intelligent insect life ; he considers it 

 better, according to the true and ancient proverb, Multum non 

 multa, to treat a single species thoroughly, rather than many 

 species cursorily and superficially, thus falling into the common, 



