4/28 Moment of Zen: If Insects Were Bigger

...And You Thought New England Mosquitoes Were Big

Published in London from the 1890s to the 1950s, The Strand Magazine is best known for being the first place Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published his stories about one Sherlock Holmes. Its contributor list also includes such literary heavyweights as Rudyard Kipling, Agatha Christie and P.G. Wodehouse.

In 1910, it also published a piece called, "If Insects Were Bigger, " including the above picture, which was given the caption, “Panic Caused by a Mosquito in Piccadilly Circus.” About 78 years before Photoshop and 51 years before Mothra, other illustrations bear captions like, “A Lacewing Fly Spreads Consternation in Wellington Street” and “A Dragon-Fly Captures an Unsuspecting Four-Wheeler in Liverpool.”

The author, J.H. Kerner Greenwood, noted: “It is true we are still molested by hordes of wild animals of bloodthirsty propensities. These wild animals only lack the single quality–namely, that of size–to render them all-powerful and all-desolating, and this quality they have not been able to attain owing to the lack of favouring conditions.”

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