Insect Lives

by Hoyt, Erich; Schultz, Ted

• ISBN13: 9780674009523
• ISBN10: 0674009525
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-11-30
• Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr

Summary

Insects inhabit an often unexamined microcosmos, pursuing lives that are often strange beyond our wildest imaginings. From the dawn of humanity, our six-legged fellow Earthlings have repelled and enthralled us. Humans have exterminated, eaten, domesticated, and even excommunicated insects. We collect them, we curse them, and we have penned a surprising body of literature about them.Insect Lives: Stories of Mystery and Romance from a Hidden World offers an entertaining and informative survey of the human fascination, dreadful and otherwise, with insects diabolical and divine, from accounts in the Bible and Aristotle to the writings of Charles Darwin and the great nineteenth-century naturalists sending home accounts from the rain forest. Highlighted here are observations from E. O. Wilson, Jean-Henri Fabreacute;, David Quammen, May Berenbaum, Roger Swain, William Wordsworth, A. S. Byatt, Gary Larson and more than sixty other writers who tell of the mystery and romance of that other, hidden world beneath our feet and beyond our rolled-up newspapers.

Table of Contents

Editors' Note	viii
Introduction	1	(4)
Wonders of Creation: Insects Praised	5	(44)
So Great the Excitement	7	(6)
Alfred Russel Wallace
To a Butterfly	13	(1)
William Wordsworth
The Sacred Beetle	14	(6)
Jean-Henri Fabre
Enjoying Insects in the Home Garden	20	(5)
Howard Ensign Evans
The Ways of a Mud Dauber	25	(4)
George D. Shafer
Ode to the Cricket	29	(2)
William Cowper
Manna from Heaven	31	(3)
Things Clean and Unclean	34	(2)
The Culinary Marvels of Insect Life	36	(2)
Edward Step
Insect Extravaganza	38	(2)
Jim Mertins
Why Not Eat Insects?	40	(2)
Vincent M. Holt
Sugaring for Moths	42	(4)
W.J. Holland
Bug Off!	46	(3)
Dave Barry
Plagues of Vermin: Insects Reviled	49	(40)
A Treatise of Buggs	51	(2)
John Southall
Death-Watch Beetles and the Flypaper Sellers of London	53	(9)
Frank Cowan
Insecticides	62	(2)
Tim Hunkin
Bee Bites	64	(5)
Roger B. Swain
A Pain Scale for Bee, Wasp, and Ant Stings	69	(6)
Christopher K. Starr
Fancy Footwork	75	(4)
David George Gordon
Sympathy for the Devil	79	(4)
David Quammen
Of Maggots and Murderers	83	(6)
May Berenbaum
To Conquer the Earth: Insects Take Over	89	(18)
Disturbing the Composure of an Entomologist's Mind	91	(3)
Charles Darwin
Locusts in the Land of Egypt	94	(2)
Giant Red Velvet Mites	96	(2)
Irwin M. Newell
Lloyd Tevis Jr.
Them!	98	(4)
George Worthing Yates
Ted Sherdeman
Insects from Mars	102	(1)
A Republic of Insects and Grass	103	(2)
Jonathan Schell
Insects Take Over	105	(1)
Gary Larson
The End	106	(1)
W. J. Holland
A Cast of Millions on a Fantastic Journey: Mass Movement	107	(24)
Insects at Sea	109	(2)
Charles Darwin
Army Ants	111	(5)
Thomas Belt
Caterpillars on the Line	116	(2)
George John Romanes
Swarms of Flies	118	(5)
Harold Oldroyd
More Flies at Teatime	123	(4)
Vincent G. Dethier
Need Nectar, Will Travel	127	(4)
Stephen L. Buchmann
Gary Paul Nabhan
The Superorganism: Social Insects	131	(26)
The Insect Societies	133	(4)
Edward O. Wilson
Morpho Eugenia	137	(6)
A. S. Byatt
The Spirit of the Hive	143	(3)
Maurice Maeterlinck
The Termite Queen in Her Egg Chamber	146	(1)
Gary Larson
Hive Mind	147	(10)
Kevin Kelly
Insect Architecture	157	(30)
Some Accounts of the Termites	159	(7)
Henry Smeathman
The Hometown of the Army Ants	166	(3)
William Beebe
The New Zealand Glow-worm	169	(3)
F. W. Edwards
Guatemalan Web-Spinning Cave Flies	172	(4)
O. F. Cook
Caddisfly Houses and Net Traps	176	(4)
Bernd Heinrich
Bee Cells	180	(7)
Karl von Frisch
Go Forth and Multiply: Mating and Reproduction	187	(38)
The Hostile Madness of Love	189	(4)
Maurice Maeterlinck
The Synchronous Flashing of Fireflies	193	(5)
John Buck
Elisabeth Buck
Sex on the Brain	198	(8)
James E. Lloyd
The Courtship Gifts of Balloon Flies	206	(7)
Edward L. Kessel
How to Win Mates and Influence Enemies	213	(6)
John Alcock
Fatal Attractions	219	(4)
May Berenbaum
No Sex, Please	223	(2)
Tim Hunkin
Metamorphosis	225	(22)
Of Eggs, Grubs, Nymphas, and Wings	227	(2)
Aristotle
The Wondrous Transformation of Caterpillars	229	(3)
Maria Sibylla Merian
Everyday Miracles	232	(4)
William Kirby
William Spence
The Mediterranean Worm Lion	236	(3)
William Morton Wheeler
Mexican Jumping Beans. Real! Live!	239	(2)
Chaparral Novelties
The Double Life	241	(6)
Robert Evans Snodgrass
Symbioses and Mimicry	247	(50)
Tiny Pollinator; Big Job	249	(4)
Stephen L. Buchmann
Gary Paul Nabhan
Jerry's Botfly	253	(6)
Adrian Forsyth
The Ant and the Acacia Tree	259	(6)
Thomas Belt
To a Louse	265	(2)
Robert Burns
An Earful of Mites	267	(13)
Asher E. Treat
Murder by Narcosis	280	(4)
Edward Jacobson
The Ant-Decapitating Fly	284	(5)
Theodore Pergande
For the Love of Nature	289	(3)
Thomas Eisner
Mimics, Aggressive and Otherwise	292	(5)
John Alcock
Lives under the Microscope: Insect Behavior	297	(52)
Little Crumple-Wing	299	(8)
George D. Shafer
Brute Neighbors	307	(3)
Henry David Thoreau
Slave-Making in Ants	310	(4)
Charles Darwin
The Daintiness of Ants	314	(6)
Reverend Henry C. McCook
The Tenderness of Earwigs	320	(2)
Charles Degeer
George John Romanes
Letter from Brazil: Termites and Stingless Bees	322	(4)
Fritz Muller
Charles Darwin
The Social Behavior of Burying Beetles	326	(7)
Lorus J. Milne
Margery Milne
Insect Consciousness	333	(16)
Donald R. Griffin
Acknowledgments	349	(4)
List of Authors	353	(1)
Index	354