The Soul of the White Ant

This book was the cause of a very polemical dispute with Maurice Maeterlinck who also wrote about Termites . Who had invented the principal ideas of the book, of which the most important was: the more a mother suffers, the more she loves her child? (Insect-mothers don't suffer in general, so...). IMHO it was Marais who developed the theses advocated in the book, as they are solidly embedded in (though not necessarily deducted from) observation. And Marais lived in South-Africa, whereas MM knew his subject only from reading about it... But ofcourse this isn't a proof.

Entomology