American Nature Series
Group V. Diversions from Nature
INSECT STORIES
BY
VERNON L. KELLOGG
With Illustrations
BY
Mary Wellman, Maud Lanktree, and Sekko Shimada
NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1908
Copyright, 1908,
BY
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
Published June, 1908
ROBERT DRUMMOND COMPANY, PRINTERS, NEW YORK
TO
DOROTHY S., ANNA F., AND MARY L.
WHO ARE MARY
PREFATORY NOTE
In these days many strange, true stories about animals are beingwritten and read, but it seems to me that some of our most intimateand interesting animal companions are being overlooked. So I havetried to write about a few of them. These stories are true. I knowthis, for Mary and I have really seen almost everything I have told;and they seem to us strange. If there have slipped into the storiesoccasional slight attempts to show some reason for the strange thingsor to point an unobtrusive moral, it is because the teacher's habithas overcome the story-teller's intention. So the slips may bepardoned.
Of course I recognize that it is taking great chances nowadays withone's reputation[Pg vi] for honesty and truth-telling to write or tellstories about animal behavior. Nature writers seem to be held, as aclass, not to be above suspicion. But is a truthful man to be keptsilent by criticism or abuse, or, on the other hand, is he tosurrender, even for cash, to bad examples? I call out, "No!" and beaton the table as I say this until the pens and paper hop, and Maryasks, "No what?" Which reminds me that I must make some exception tomy sweeping declaration of the truth of the whole of this little book.I am not responsible for Mary! She is, bless her, a child of dreams,and sometimes her dreams get into her talk. So some of Mary in thisbook is fancy; but the beasties and their doings are—I say itagain—true, quite true.
Stanford University, California.
LIST OF STORIES
A NARROW-WAISTED MOTHER
RED AND BLACK AGAINST WHITE
THE VENDETTA
THE TRUE STORY OF THE PIT OF MORROWBIE JUKES
ARGIOPE OF THE SILVER SHIELD
THE ORANGE-DWELLERS
THE DRAGON OF LAGUNITA
A SUMMER INVASION
A CLEVER LITTLE BROWN ANT
AN HOUR OF LIVING; OR, THE DANCE OF DEATH
...