Entomology

Mankind has done pretty well against our competitors in the animal kingdom. Wolves know their place and there are no armies of bears that we need fear. The few thousands of people per year that animals kill are largely accidental attacks driven out of fear or an attempt by the animal to protect its turf or from some age or disease related craziness. Animals know their place-they have lost the evolutionary battle and the most successful non human animals are one that have made themselves either cute (like dogs) or useful (like cows). Not so insects. They vastly outnumber humans, compete against us on every continent, destroy a high percentage of our food (both as crops and down the processing chain) and are disease vectors that continue to kill millions of human beings each year.

We recently handled the nicest insect and entomology collection on stamps that we have ever seen (and actually for the bug squeemish, which should be all of us, collecting bugs on stamps is the best way to assemble them). In 65 volumes, the collection has thousands of stamps and covers depicting the prettier insects such as butterflies to the more repellent such as flies and musquitos. The collection is lot 5160 in our latest Buy It Now Sale and must be seen to be appreciated. Some of the greatest minds in history have been bug collectors. Darwins youthful fascination with beetles, for instance, has been credited with helping him with his later insights on natural selection. Insect behavior is so biologically driven that people who study them tend to be less impressed with the human concept of free will. and this has tended to let such people better understand the way most life is biologically determined.

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