DEAR MR. PUNCH,--From your earliest years you have preached sound and
wholesome doctrine on the duty of man to birds and beasts. Indeed,
I remember your pushing it to extreme lengths in a poem entreating
people not to mention mint-sauce when conversing with a lamb. Still,
I wonder whether even you would approve of the title of an article
in _Nature_ on "The Behaviour of Beetles." Of course I know that
"behaviour" is a colourless word, still I am rather inclined to doubt
whether beetles know how to behave at all. I may be prejudiced by my
own experiences, but they certainly have been unfortunate. They began
early--at my private school, to be precise. I shall never forget the
conversation I had, when a new boy, with a sardonic senior who, after
putting me through the usual catechism, asked me what I was going to
be. I replied that I had not yet decided, whereupon my tormentor,
after looking at my feet, which I have never succeeded in growing
up to, observed, "Well, if I were you, I think I should emigrate to
Colorado and help to crush the beetle." Later on in life I was the
victim of a cruel hoax, carried out with triumphant ingenuity by a
confirmed practical joker, who with the aid of a thread caused what
appeared to be a gigantic blackbeetle to perform strange and unholy
evolutions in my sitting-room. Worst of all, I was victimised by the
presence of a blackbeetle in a plate of clear soup served me at
my club. I backed my bill, but it was too late, for I am very
shortsighted.
No, Mr. Punch, I am prepared to discuss the Ethics of Eels, the
Altruism of Adders, the Piety of Pintails, or even the Benevolence of
Bluebottles, but (to deviate into doggerel)--
"Let LANKESTERS, LUBBOCKS and CHEATLES
Dilate with a rapturous bliss
On the noble behaviour of beetles--
_I_ give them a miss."