xii CURIOUS HOMES AND THEIR TENANTS. 



tive knowledge called science and those of the lower 

 animals in building their habitations, and to observe 

 the almost invariably superior results obtained through 

 the greater constructive ability of the latter. This 

 comparison has not, so far as the author knows, been 

 elsewhere suggested, although several works have been 

 written upon the architecture of insects and other 

 animals. 



Zoology is a progressive science, and even in so 

 small a volume as the present one a number of recent 

 discoveries in natural history, not to be found else- 

 where in similar works are noticed. There is, indeed, 

 more to be told than many volumes could contain, 

 and still more to learn than has yet been recorded in 

 regard to the house-building and housekeeping of the 

 children of Nature ; and the author is not without 

 hope that even the incomplete and unambitious 

 sketches here given may incite some active young 

 brain to busy itself with the subject. Children are 

 among the best observers in the world. Their keen 

 eyes and the direct and sympathetic deductions they 

 make from what they see sometimes solve problems 

 that puzzle their elders. No preparation or special 

 apparatus is necessary to study the manners and cus- 

 toms of tiny tribes of which, though they fill our 

 fields and forests and are always with us, we really 

 know so little. Nothing but the leisure which at- 

 tends so few of us older folks, and of interest in the 

 work and love for it, which, I fear, still fewer possess, 

 is required to make perhaps important discoveries, 

 correct serious errors, or confirm observations already 



