Insects and Man

New Zealand Listener, Volume 14, Issue 360, 17 May 1946, Page 10

Insects and Man

[N Auckland the Winter Course Talks have begun with a series on "Insects and Man" given by Dr. W. Cottier of the Plant Research Bureau at Mt. Albert. The facts of insect life are hairraising even when they are put into the form of a university lecture as Dr. Cottier does it with the items grouped severely, (a), (b) and (c). Indeed I think that this formal and undramatic treatment may be the best background to such startling horrors as the distance a man could jump if his legs were as strong as a flea’s, or the fact that a pair of flies, starting operations in October, could by February cover the whole earth in a solid layer 47 inches (or it may have been feet, but no matter) deep. Man thinks, plans, questions; insects go straight for what they need, and such is their single-minded persistence and force of numbers that some of them usually win through. The fight, says Dr. Cottier, is still on. We are hearing only man’s point of view of course, but it is borne out by the most distinguished literary figure of the insect world who has written: everything man knows he has had to learn whereas we insects are born knowing everything we need to know for instance man had to invent airplanes before he could fly but if a fly cannot fly as soon as he is hatched his parents kick him out and disown him archy.