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 
isin aname. 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- 
