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Excerpt from Insect Artizans and Their Work
No one who has devoted any considerable part of his open-air leisure to the observation of living insects can fail to be struck by the fact that each species has its own definite method of life, its own way of doing things, and, in the construction of a shelter for itself or its progeny, its own preference for materials and its own mode of using them. These are the methods and preferences not of the individual, but of the species; and the individual needs no apprenticeship, but goes directly to work with the experience it has inherited from an enormously long line of ancestors. In an earlier period of our civilization the son followed the vocation of his father, taught by him, and inheriting the secrets of the craft. Many of our surviving surnames are due to this fact, the names of Smith, Taylor, Fletcher, Bowyer, and the like becoming permanently attached to the families pursuing these crafts and mysteries. In the case of the Insects, the parents cannot instruct their offspring, for as a rule they never see them. One marvels at the skill displayed by the bird in constructing its first nest; but it may be said that the newly mature bird has at least a chance of watching a second-year matron of its kind building, and getting some hints that way. In the case of the Insects there is, as a rule, no possibility of such help.
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