Jean-Henri Fabre

“ But pretty soon the young cuckoo is found to be growing faster than the others; it will soon need for itself alone all the food that its foster-parents can possibly secure with the utmost industry; it is always opening its wide beak, always complaining of hunger. Moreover, it is cramped for room in the little house of hair and wool. Its featherless body, squatting there flat and red, its large head, its bottomless abyss of a beak, its big, bulging eyes, all give it the appearance of a toad sitting at the bottom of the nest. ”

“ A multitude of birds of many kinds make this grove their abode. There the quarrelsome jay fights with one of its own species for the possession of a beechnut; there the magpie chatters on a high branch and then flies down and alights in a neighboring field, jerking up its tail and looking around with an air of defiance; crows have their evening rendezvous there; and there the woodpecker hammers away at old bark to make the insects come out so that it may snap them up with its viscous tongue. Listen to the bird at its work: toc, toc, toc! ”

“ The gnats dance in joyous swarms which the slightest breath of wind disperses like a column of smoke; butterflies and moths, in wedding-garments, their wings powdered with silvery dust and their antennæ spread out like plumes, join in the frolic or seek places in which to deposit their eggs; the wood-borer comes forth from its hidden retreat under the bark of the elm; the weevil breaks its cell hollowed out in a grain of wheat; the plume-moths rise in clouds from the granaries and fly toward the fields of ripe cereals ”

“ We say of a person of limited intelligence that he is as stupid as a buzzard. Here again is an instance of that wrong-headedness which makes us think little of so many of our helpers and glorify those that prey upon us. Stupidity is the name we give to the buzzard’s peculiarities, and for no better reason than that the bird spares our poultry-yards and rids us of troublesome rodents; whereas we speak of the eagle, which steals our lambs, and of the falcon, plunderer of chicken-coops, as courageous, noble, and splendid. ”

“ The so-called common climber is a tiny bird with whitish plumage spotted with brown above and tinged with red on the rump and tail. Its life is a most laborious one. It frequents woods, orchards, and the trees of our public promenades, where you may see it always busily engaged in examining every square inch of the surface of tree trunks in order to thrust its slender beak into the cracks of the bark and catch any lurking gnats, bugs, caterpillars, or cocoons. ”

“ The goshawk is the scourge of pigeon-cotes, for which reason it is also called the pigeons’ falcon. It selects for itself a lofty perch on some tall tree and there keeps a watchful eye on the flocks of pigeons foraging in the fields. Woe betide the luckless one that forgets for a moment to be on its guard. The bird pounces upon it in oblique flight, almost skimming the surface of the ground, and in less than no time the pigeon is seized and carried off to some lonely rock, where the ravisher plucks its feathers and tears it to pieces while still warm. ”

“ Both chase flying insects, following them in their endless dodgings and doublings and snapping them up with yawning beak, then passing on without an instant’s delay to the pursuit of others. But how much more pleasing in appearance, how much swifter in flight is the swallow than that hunter, the sad-looking bat! While we may compare their work and their way of hunting, we cannot compare them in anything else. Buffon quotes Guéneau de Montbéliard as saying:
“ ‘The air is the swallow’s appropriate element, and it is the nature of the bird to be ever on the wing. ”

“ The pecks fall thick as hail on the sufferer’s back, and it is nearly deafened with shrill screams of triumph and insulting cries of hatred. The redbreast pulls out a feather, the tomtit threatens the enemy’s eyes, the jay overwhelms it with abuse. The whole grove is in an uproar. But beware when night closes in; then the boldest will lose courage. These same saucy little birds, that come in the daytime and insult the owl, flee from it in wild alarm as soon as darkness allows it to move about and use its powerful talons and hooked beak. ”

“ In fact, their breathing is so weak that the closest scrutiny can hardly detect that they breathe at all. This faint remnant of life is not to be compared, you can well see, to the blazing torch or the brightly burning fire, both of which, enjoying free combustion, send out waves of heat and light. It is rather the feeble glimmer of a night lamp husbanding its last drop of oil; it is the coal that glows faintly under the ashes. ”

“ Is it not said of the buzzard that it is a stupid bird, just because it shows such patience in watching and waiting, perfectly motionless, for the field-mouse it suspects to be lurking under the ground? And here we have the woodpecker accused of being so foolish as to think it can pierce a tree trunk with one blow of its beak, merely because it runs around to capture the insects fleeing to the other side! Bear this in mind: there is in animals no foolishness except what we ascribe to them from our own point of view. ”

“ The hunting is good; gnats, beetles, and moths abound; and every now and then a little cry of joy announces the capture of a plump June-bug. As long as the fading twilight permits, the eager hunter thus pursues its work of extermination. Satisfied at last, the bat flies back to its somber and quiet retreat. The next evening and all through the summer the hunt is resumed, always with the same ardor, always at the expense of insects only. ”

“ If a birdnest-hunter climbs up to its hole to steal its little ones, the wryneck emits, from the depths of its retreat, a sharp hissing and begins to make snake-like movements with its neck. The young birds, still featherless, imitate their mother to the best of their ability, and succeed so well that the hunter thinks he has thrust his hand into a nest of writhing and twisting flat-headed vipers. ”

“ No other pays any heed to our interests; all work for themselves and their young. If their instinct prompts them to destroy only species harmful to us, so much the better: they are excellent helpers; but if they hunt both harmful and helpful species, we must balance the total good against the total harm that they do. If the good tips the scale, let us respect the animal: it is a helper. If it does more harm than good, let us declare war on the creature: it is a ravager. The eagle-owl catches in the fields such formidable hoarders of grain as field-mice and hamsters ”

“ Its flabby form is a shapeless lump, thrown together as if in careless haste, and its flattened, dirt-colored back is strewn with livid warts. Its legs, too short for symmetry or for effectual service, are unable to lift out of the mud its swollen stomach, which drags on the ground. Its big head merges into a hideous mouth, and heavy eyelids open to show large and prominent eyes which stare stupidly. If some danger threatens, it puffs itself up, forming under its skin an air-cushion which resists blows with its flabby elasticity. ”

“ You complain of rats—and you nail the owl to your door, where you let its carcass dry up, a hideous trophy! You complain of the white worms—and you crush the mole every time the spade brings one to light. You rip up the hedgehog and set your dogs on him just for fun. You complain of the ravages of moths [89] in your granaries, and if a bat falls into your hands you seldom spare it. You complain, and yet you mistreat all the animals that offer to help you. Blind you are and sadly misguided in your wanton cruelty. ”

“ Emile asked.
“You can readily understand that in its headlong chase the bird has no time to dismember its captives. Pouncing upon the insect with wide-open beak, snapping it up, and gulping it down—all this it does as it flies, without a moment’s pause. No sooner is the plumpest prey captured than down it goes, alive and struggling, into the bird’s crop.” ”

“ It is the hour when the sphinx-moths fly abruptly from flower to flower and thrust their long probosces into the depths of the corollas, where honey is stored; the hour when the mosquito, thirsting for human blood, sounds its war-cry in our ears and selects our tenderest spot to stab with its poisoned lancet; the hour when the June-bug leaves the shelter of the leaf, spreads its buzzing wings, and goes humming through the air in quest of its fellows. ”

“ The redbreast and the tomtit are among the first to hasten to the scene, followed by the finch, the blackbird, the jay, the thrush, and many others. Perched on a branch, the night-bird receives the aggressors with a grotesque balancing of its body, turning its big head this way and that in a ridiculous manner and rolling its great eyes as if thinking thus to terrify its persecutors. But all in vain. The smallest and weakest are the boldest in tormenting it; they assault their victim with beak and claw, pulling out its feathers before the hapless bird can muster courage to defend itself. ”

“ It is not true that the barn-owl flies into churches and drinks the oil from the lamp that is kept lighted night and day in the sanctuary; it is not true that it laughs when it hears the passing-bell; it is not true that its hooting on the roof of a house means that some one in the house will soon die. False are all the sayings about its evil influence and its predictions of misfortune, and any one who believes these absurd stories simply shows that he has no common sense. ”

“ Clumsy and stubby as it is, with legs so short and claws useless for climbing, how could it manage an athletic feat that calls for agility, hooked claws, and supple limbs? No, my friend, the hedgehog does not climb trees, neither does it carry off fruit transfixed with its spines. The only vestige of truth in that old wives’ tale is that hedgehogs do not live exclusively on prey; if they find fruit that they like on the ground, a very ripe pear or a juicy peach, for example, they munch it with as great contentment as they would a beetle or a June-bug. ”

“ Scarcely has she smelt it when she makes a movement of superb scorn, tail in the air, back raised, and looks at you as if to say: ‘Are you making fun of me? I want something else.’ Or, if very hungry, she reluctantly bites the bread, chews it awkwardly, and swallows it with distaste. The dog, on the contrary, our good Azor for example, catches the bread joyfully in his mouth without letting it touch the ground, and if he finds any fault with the piece it is for being too small. You call the cat a glutton. ”

“ I know that it does not hesitate, when occasion offers, to seize and carry off a wounded young hare; and I also know that when the snow is on the ground and the buzzard is pressed by hunger, it will pounce upon any stray chicken that may have got out of the poultry-yard. But what are these few acts of theft when compared with the thousands of rodents of all kinds that it clears away from our fields? Whatever the season of the year, one cannot open a buzzard’s crop without finding common mice, field-mice, and meadow-mice there by the dozen. ”

“ Not a finger is lifted by us, not a muscle moved, that does not use up just so much of the fuel furnished by the blood, which itself is made by the food we eat. Walking, running, working, excitement, all forms of exercise or emotion—these literally burn up our blood just as a locomotive burns its coal in dragging behind it the immense weight of a train. ”