est of our domesticated animals, the elephant. If
the philanthropic economist were forced to choose which of these
creatures should pass from the earth, he would have to accept the loss
of the greater and far nobler animal.

So far as regards their intelligence, the silkworms are much below the
level of the bees. Though they dwell in an aggregate way they have
scarcely a semblance of social order, and are without the wide range of
peculiar instincts which we invariably find among the commonwealth
animals. The order of _Lepidoptera_, in which these creatures belong,
though the most beautiful, appears to be from an intellectual point of
view the least advanced of our insects. Their instincts are all on a low
plane; they have no kind of mutual labor, and however much advance we
may make by selection in developing their bodies, there is no reason to
expect that we shall affect their intelligences.

The cochineal insect, a species which has the habit of feeding upon
the cactus, is used for a dye stuff, for which service the brightly
colored body is appropriated. Although the creature is deliberately
planted where it is to feed, and thus is in a way submitted to
culture, it cannot fairly be said to have been entered in the
domesticated circle of man. In a similar way the so-called Spanish
fly--which really belongs among the beetles--whose ground-up bodies
are used for producing blisters, is merely appropriated to our use
without any process of subjugation. The fact remains that, so far as
our dealings with the insect world have gone, we have really won but
two of the million or more of forms to captivity; and our relations
with these have nothing of the humanized nature which marks our
intercourse with truly domesticated creatures.

Small as are the lessons which we may read from our experience with the
honey-bee and the silkworm, they appear clearly to indicate that, while
we may expect to do little with the intelligences of insects, we may
fairly reckon on a great field for accomplishment in the way of changes
in their bodily constitution. In the case of the bees the facts show us
that in particular conditions of climate or other surroundings a certain
amount of variation takes place, and by proper selection either of
queens or swarms it may be possible considerably to extend the value of
these animals. The task is beset with difficulties for the reason that,
while in ordinary selective breeding we deal with individuals,