SOME FRENCH POEMS ABOUT INSECTS Last year I gave a lecture on the subject of English poems about insects, with some reference to the old Greek poems on the same subject.

But I did not then have an opportunity to make any reference to French poems upon the same subject, and I think that it would be a pity not to give you a few examples.
Just as in the case of English poems about insects, nearly all the French literature upon this subject is new.

Insect poetry belongs to the newer and larger age of thought, to the age that begins to perceive the great truth of the unity of life.

We no longer find, even in natural histories, the insect treated as a mere machine and unthinking organism; on the contrary its habits, its customs and its manifestation both of intelligence and instinct are being very carefully studied in these times, and a certain sympathy, as well as a certain feeling of respect or admiration, may be found in the scientific treatises of the greatest men who write about insect life.

So, naturally, Europe is slowly returning to the poetical standpoint of the old Greeks in this respect.