MISPLACED BENEVOLENCE.
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."
I am, Mr. Punch, with much respect,
Yours faithfully,
Philander Blamphin.