The way animals behave, the way they cope with the problems of existence, has always been a source of fascination to me. In the following talks I tried to show some of the astonishing methods they use to obtain a mate, to defend themselves or to build their homes.

An ugly or horrifying animal – like an ugly or horrifying human being – is never completely devoid of certain attractive qualities. And one of the most disarming things about the animal world is the sudden encounter with what appeared to be a very dull and nasty beast behaving in a charming and captivating way: an earwig squatting like a hen over her nest of eggs, and carefully gathering them all together again if you are unkind enough to scatter them; a spider who, having tickled his lady-love into a trance, takes the precaution of tying her down with silk threads so that she will not suddenly wake up and devour him after the mating; the sea-otter that carefully ties itself to a bed of seaweed so that it may sleep without fear of being carried too far away by the tides and currents.

I remember once, when I was quite young, sitting on the banks of a small sluggish stream in Greece. Suddenly, out of the water crawled an insect that looked as if it had just arrived from outer space. It made its laborious way up the stalk of a bullrush. It had great bulbous eyes, a carunculated body supported on spidery legs, and slung across its chest was a curious contraption, carefully folded, that looked as though it might be some sort of Martian aqualung. The insect made its way carefully up the bullrush while the hot sun dried the water off its ugly body. Then it paused and appeared to go into a trance. I was fascinated and yet interested by its repulsive appearance, for in those days my interest in natural history was only equalled by my lack of knowledge, and I did not recognize it for what it was. Suddenly I noticed that the creature, now thoroughly sun-dried and as brown as a nut, had split right down its back and, as I watched, it seemed as though the animal inside was struggling to get out. As the minutes passed, the struggles grew stronger and the split grew larger, and presently the creature inside hauled itself free of its ugly skin and crawled feebly on to the rush stalk, and I saw it was a dragonfly. Its wings were still wet and crumpled from this strange birth, and its body soft, but, as I watched, the sun did its work and the wings dried stiff and straight, as fragile as snowflakes and as intricate as a cathedral window. The body also stiffened, and changed to a brilliant sky-blue. The dragonfly whirred its wings a couple of times, making them shimmer in the sun, and then flew unsteadily away, leaving behind, still clinging to the stem, the unpleasant shell of its former self.

I had never seen such a transformation before, and as I gazed with amazement at the unattractive husk which had housed the beautiful shining insect, I made a vow that never again would I judge an animal by its appearance.