scope, so absorbing to interest one's self in everything that
swarms around us! However, let us pass on and admit that the
compliment is not unfounded.

My hesitation ceases if it is a question of admitting my curiosity
in matters that concern the insect. Yes, I possess the gift, the
instinct that impels me to frequent that singular world; yes, I
know that I am capable of spending on those studies an amount of
precious time which would be better employed in making provision,
if possible, for the poverty of old age; yes, I confess that I am
an enthusiastic observer of the animal. How was this
characteristic propensity, at once the torment and delight of my
life, developed? And, to begin with, how much does it owe to
heredity?

The common people have no history: persecuted by the present, they
cannot think of preserving the memory of the past. And yet what
surpassingly instructive records, comforting too and pious, would
be the family papers that should tell us who our forebears were and
speak to us of their patient struggles with harsh fate, their
stubborn efforts to build up, atom by atom, what we are today. No
story would come up with that for individual interest. But by the
very force of things the home is abandoned; and, when the brood has
flown, the nest is no longer recognized.

I, a humble journeyman in the toilers' hive, am therefore very poor
in family recollections. In the second degree of ancestry, my
facts become suddenly obscured. I will linger over them a moment
for two reasons: first, to inquire into the influence of heredity;
and, secondly, to leave my children yet one more page concerning