So interested was I in watching them, so delighted to be in this society, whose members, for all their shape, no longer moved about in, to me, unimaginable worlds, that I went day after day and spent long hours with them. I could best watch their battles by getting down on my knees in the good-for-nothing ("heath false brome") grass, so as to bring my eyes within two or three feet of them. My attitude, kneeling with bowed head by the half-hour at a stretch, one day attracted the attention of some persons who had come in a carriage to picnic under the trees at the foot of the slope, four or five hundred yards away. There were from time to time little explosions of laughter, and at last a young lady of twelve or fourteen cried, or piped out, in a clear, far-reaching voice, "Holy man!" She was an impudent monkey. So far not a word has been said of the female, simply because, as it seemed to me, there was, so far, nothing to say. In most insects the odour excites and draws the males, often from long distances, as we see in the moths; they fly to, and find, and see her, and woo, and chase, and fight with each other for possession of her; and when there are beautiful or fantastic movements, sometimes accompanied with sounds, corresponding to the antics of birds--I have observed them in species of Asilidæ and other insects--they are directly caused by the presence of the female. But with _viridissima_ it appears not to be so, since they do not seek the female, nor will they notice her when she comes in {148} their way, but they are wholly absorbed in their own music, and in trying to outsing the others, or, failing in this, to kick and bite them into silence. Now, seeing this strange condition of things among these insects--seeing it day after day for weeks--the conclusion forced itself upon my mind that we have here one of those strange cases among the lower creatures which are not uncommon in human life--the case of a faculty, a means to an end, being developed and refined to an excessive degree, and the reflex effect of this too great refinement on the species, or race. Comparing it then to certain human matters--to Art, let us say--we see that that which was but a means has become an end, and is pursued for its own sake.