Thursday, March 05, 2020
Rivals of Mankind
Donald Culross Peattie (1898-1964), An Almanac for Moderns (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1935), p. 135 (July 22):
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Of all the rivals of mankind for dominance on this earth no other creatures large enough to be seen with the naked eye have held out successfully save the insects. When we clear the forest, we rid ourselves of the forest insects, only to make way for the field insects. Man sows his crops—and what comes up? A host of long-faced, armor-plated locusts who eat him out of house and home. We strike at them, but it is like striking at the sea. Whatever way we turn we find the insects there before us, in water, in air, on the earth and under it.
