Chapters I. to VIII., XV., XVI. and XIX. have already appeared, in certain cases under different titles and partly in an abbreviated form, in an interesting miscellany extracted from the Souvenirs, translated by Mr. Bernard Miall and published by the Century Company. This volume, Social Life in the Insect World, is illustrated with admirable photographs of insects, taken from life, and deserves a prominent place on the shelves of every lover of Fabre’s works. At the moment of writing, the only one of the following essays that has been published before, in my translation, is the first of the three describing the White-faced Decticus, which appeared, in the summer of last year, in the English Review. Miss Frances Rodwell has again lent me the most valuable assistance in preparing this volume; and I am indebted also to Mr. Osman Edwards and Mr. Stephen McKenna for their graceful rhymed versions of the occasional lyrics that adorn it. Alexander Teixeira de Mattos. Chelsea, 1917. CHAPTER I THE FABLE OF THE CICADA AND THE ANT Fame is built up mainly of legend; in the animal world, as in the world of men, the story takes precedence of history. Insects in particular, whether they attract our attention in this way or in that, have their fair share in a folk-lore which pays but little regard to truth. For instance, who does not know the Cicada, at least by name? Where, in the entomological world, can we find a renown that equals hers? Her reputation as an inveterate singer, who takes no thought for the future, has formed a subject for our earliest exercises in repetition. In verses that are very easily learnt, she is shown to us, when the bitter winds begin to blow, quite destitute and hurrying to her neighbour, the Ant, to announce her hunger. The would-be borrower meets with a poor welcome and with a reply which has remained proverbial and is the chief cause of the little creature’s fame. Those two short lines, Vous chantiez! J’en suis bien en aise. Eh bien, dansez maintenant, [1] with their petty malice, have done more for the Cicada’s celebrity than all her talent as a musician. They enter the child’s mind like a wedge and never leave it. To most of us, the Cicada’s song is unknown, for she dwells in the land of the olive-trees; but we all, big and little, have heard of the snub which she received from the Ant. See how reputations are made! A story of very doubtful value, offending as much against morality as against natural history; a nursery-tale whose only merit lies in its brevity: there we have the origin of a renown which will tower over the ruins of the centuries like Hop-o’-my-Thumb’s boots and Little Red-Riding-Hood’s basket.