Jean-Henri Fabre

“ Then the Wood-pigeon's iridescent hues, the eyes on the Peacock's tail, the Kingfisher's sea-blue, the Flamingo's carmine are more or less closely connected with the urinary excretions? Why not? Nature, that sublime economist, delights in these vast antitheses which upset all our conceptions of the values of things. Of a pinch of common charcoal she makes a diamond; of the same clay which the potter fashions into a bowl for the Cat's supper she makes a ruby; of the filthy waste products of the organism she makes the splendours of the insect and the bird. ”

“ We see renewed, in another form, the feats of prowess of the Anthrax, whose pupa, armed with trepans, bores through rock on the feeble Fly's behalf. Urged by a presentiment that to us remains an unfathomable mystery, the Cerambyx-grub leaves the inside of the oak, its peaceful retreat, its unassailable stronghold, to wriggle towards the outside, where lives the foe, the Woodpecker, who may gobble up the succulent little sausage. At the risk of its life, it stubbornly digs and gnaws to the very bark, of which it leaves no more intact than the thinnest film, a slender screen. ”

“ The Beetle under experiment is lying on the table. He feels beneath him a hard body which gives him no chance of digging. As he cannot hope to take refuge underground, an easy task for his nimble and vigorous tools, the Scarites lies low in his death-like pose, keeping it up, if need be, for an hour. If he were reclining on the sand, the loose soil with which he is so familiar, would he not regain his activity more rapidly, would he not at least betray by a few twitches his desire to escape into the basement? ”

“ It is a wearer of armoured wing-cases, slow to disengage the wings from their horny sheath, or perhaps an incomplete form, with no wing-surfaces. Incapable of sudden flight, the surprised insect lets itself fall. You look for it in the grass, often in vain. If you do find it, it is lying on its back, with its legs folded, without stirring.
It is shamming dead, people will tell you; it is pretending, in order to escape its enemy. Man is certainly unknown to it; we count for nothing in its little world. What does it care for our hunting, whether we be children or scientists? ”

“ In those happy days when the discovery of a nest marked a red-letter day, I never saw my Sparrows or Greenfinches refuse a Locust because he was not moving, or a Fly because she was dead. Any mouthful that does not kick is eagerly accepted, provided that it be fresh and pleasant to the taste.
If the insect, therefore, relies on the appearance of death, it would seem to me to be very badly inspired. More wary than the Bear in the fable, the bird, with its perspicacious eye, will recognize the fraud in a moment and proceed to business. ”

“ The coming Capricorn will not enjoy the same privileges. Stiffly girt in his horn cuirass, he will not be able to turn from end to end; he will not even be capable of bending, if some sudden wind should make the passage difficult. He must absolutely find the door in front of him, lest he perish in the casket. Should the grub forget this little formality, should it lie down to its nymphal sleep with its head at the back of the cell, the Capricorn is infallibly lost: his cradle becomes a hopeless dungeon. ”

“ SUICIDE OR HYPNOSIS?
You do not imitate the unfamiliar; you do not counterfeit a thing of which you know nothing: that is obvious. The simulation of death, therefore, implies a certain knowledge of death.
Well, has the insect, or rather, has any kind of animal, a presentiment that its life cannot last for ever? Does the perturbing problem of an end occur to its dense brain? I have associated a great deal with animals, I have lived on intimate terms with them and I have never observed anything to justify me in saying yes. ”

“ We find no art, no industry, not even in the larva, which practices the adult's trade and meditates its crimes while wandering under the stones. Nevertheless it is to one of these dull-witted warriors that I am deliberately proposing to apply to-day, prompted by the wish to solve a certain question. Let me tell you what it is.
You have surprised this or that insect, motionless on a bough, blissfully basking in the sun. Your hand is raised, open, ready to descend on it and seize it. Hardly have you made the movement when the insect drops to the ground. ”

“ When the time comes for the grub to bury itself in the ground, there to undergo the transformation, it lays aside its mantle, with the object perhaps of easing itself when it descends from the top of the plant, or else with the object of taking a bath in that kindly sunlight whereof it has hitherto tasted so little under its moist coverlet. This naked journey over the leaves, the last joy of its larval life, is fatal to the traveller. Up comes the Tachina, who, finding a clean skin, all sleek with fat, loses no time in dabbing her eggs upon it. ”

“ Eating is not everything: we have to get out of this. The larva, so well-equipped with tools and muscular strength, finds no difficulty in going where it pleases, by boring through the wood; but does the coming Capricorn, whose short spell of life must be spent in the open air, possess the same advantages? Hatched inside the trunk, will the long-horned Beetle be able to clear itself a way of escape?
That is the difficulty which the worm solves by inspiration. Less versed in things of the future, despite my gleams of reason, I resort to experiment with a view to fathoming the question. ”

“ What can be the psychology of a creature possessing such a powerful digestive organism combined with such a feeble set of senses? A vain wish has often come to me in my dreams: it is to be able to think, for a few minutes, with the crude brain of my Dog, to see the world with the faceted eyes of a Gnat. How things would change in appearance! They would change much more if interpreted by the intellect of the grub. ”

“ Meanwhile, the beloved makes herself small, opening her wing-cases slightly, hiding her head and tucking her abdomen under her, as though to escape the erotic thunderstorm that is bursting upon her back. But the paroxysm calms down. The male extends his fore-legs, shaken by a nervous tremor, like the arms of a cross and in this ecstatic posture seems to call upon the heavens to witness the ardour of his desires. The antennæ and the belly are held motionless, in a straight line; the head and the corselet alone continue to heave rapidly up and down. ”

“ Suspending their audacious patrolling before the galleries under construction, these spoilers of the victualled cells alight for an instant on a camomile-flower and lo, the thief is robbed! A tiny, imperceptible louse has slipped into the thick of the downy fur and, at the moment when the parasite, after destroying the Anthophora's egg, is laying her own upon the stolen honey, will creep upon this egg, destroy it in its turn and remain sole mistress of the provisions. ”

“ So, when the Mole is buried and everything in order in the cellar, they stray uneasily over the trellised dome; they clamber up, come down, go up again and take to flight, a flight which instantly becomes a fall, owing to collision with the wire grating. They pick themselves up and begin all over again. The sky is splendid; the weather is hot, calm and propitious for those in search of the Lizard crushed beside the footpath. Perhaps the effluvia of the gamy tit-bit have reached them from afar, imperceptible to any other sense than that of the grave-diggers. ”

“ An easy prey is this naked, plump, defenceless grub, snoozing in the heat of a blazing day. Various Gnats, of humble size, but very likely terribly treacherous, haunt the foliage of the asparagus. The larva of the Crioceris, motionless in its sphinx-like attitude, does not appear to be on its guard against them, even when they come buzzing above its rump. Can they be as harmless as their peaceful frolics seem to proclaim? ”

“ After the food-pellet has been formed in the ordinary baker's fashion and the egg laid in its hatching-chamber, the Bolbites takes some armfuls of the clay near at hand, applies it to the foodstuff and presses it down. When the work is finished and smoothed to perfection with indefatigable patience, the tiny pot, built up piecemeal, looks as though made with the wheel and rivals our own earthenware in regularity. ”

“ The defensive system is limited to the long column of shavings. To deliver itself, the insect will only have to push the heap of woody rubbish back, in so many lots; the path will open in front of it ready-made. If some screen of bark hide the gallery from the outside, its mandibles will easily dispose of that: it is soft and not very thick.
The Scalary Saperda imitates the habits of its messmate, the Capricorn of the Cherry-tree. Its larva lives between the wood and the bark. To undergo its transformation, it goes down instead of coming up. ”

“ There is nothing striking in the habits of my captives, who spend the morning very quietly, the first five browsing on their oak-leaves and the sixth on her centaury-blooms. When the sun grows hot, they fly from the bunch of leaves in the centre to the wire trellis and back from the trellis to the leaves, or wander about the top of the cage in a state of great excitement.
Every moment couples are formed. They pester each other, pair without preliminaries, part without regrets and begin elsewhere all over again. Life is sweet; and there are enough for all to choose from. ”

“ That we can find out in a moment. Under the direct rays of the sun, the Scarites immediately turns over and moves off.
This is enough. Patient, persecuted creature, you have half-betrayed your insect. When the Fly tickles you, drains your moist lip, treats you as a corpse whose juices she would like to suck; when the huge Capricorn appears to your horrified gaze and puts a foot on your belly, as though to take possession of his prey; when the table quivers, that is to say, when, for you, the ground shakes, undermined perhaps by some invader of your burrow ”

“ For reasons of economy and easy acquisition, its disgusting method, but with very elegant modifications, suits the clan of the Clythræ and Cryptocephali, those pretty and magnificently coloured Beetles. Their larva, a naked little grub, makes itself a long, narrow pot, in which it lives just like the Snail in his shell. As a coat and as a dwelling the timid creature makes use of a jar, better still, of a graceful vase, the product of its industry. ”

“ Sooner or later, flurried by my pestering, the Scarites refuses to sham dead. Scarcely is he laid on his back after a fall, when he turns over and takes to his heels, as though he judged a stratagem which succeeded so indifferently to be henceforth useless.
If we were to stop here, it would certainly seem that the insect, a cunning hoaxer, seeks, as a means of defence, to cheat those who attack him. He counterfeits death; he repeats the process, becoming more persistent in his fraud in proportion as the aggression is repeated; he abandons his trickery when he deems it futile. ”

“ How many lives does the Swallow, to mention only the most peaceable, harvest in the course of a single day! From morning to evening he gulps down Crane-flies, Gnats and Midges joyously dancing in the sunbeams. Quick as lightning he passes; and the dancers are decimated. They perish; then their melancholy remnants fall from the nest containing the young brood, in the form of guano which becomes the turf's inheritance. And so it is with all and everything, with large and small, from end to end of the animal progression. A perpetual massacre perpetuates the flux of life. ”

“ I lodge my strangers partly under a wire-gauze cover and partly in glass jars, all supplied with a layer of sand. Each of them without delay digs himself a burrow. The insect bends his head a long way down and, with the points of his mandibles, brought together to form a pick-axe, he hews, digs and excavates with a will. The fore-legs, spread out and armed with hooks, gather the dust and rubbish into a load which is thrust backwards. In this way, a mound rises on the threshold of the burrow. The dwelling grows deeper quickly and by a gentle slope reaches the bottom of the jar. ”

“ It is difficult to see in what respect the Lily-grub is more deserving than the Asparagus-grub, which possesses no defensive arts. Perhaps it is less fruitful and, to make up for the poverty of the ovaries, boasts an ingenuity which safeguards the race. Nor is there anything to tell us that the soft coverlet is not at the same time a shelter which screens a too sensitive skin from the sun. And, if it were a mere fal-lal, a furbelow of larval coquetry, even that would not surprise me. The insect has tastes which we cannot judge by our own. ”

“ The general law stands out very clearly from these few data: the wood-eating grubs of the Longicorns and Buprestes prepare the path of deliverance for the perfect insect, which will have merely in one case to pass a barricade of shavings or wormed wood, or in another to pierce a slight thickness of wood or bark. Thanks to a curious reversal of its usual attributes, youth is here the season of energy, of strong tools, of stubborn work; adult age is the season of leisure, of industrial ignorance, of idle diversions, without trade or profession. ”

“ The infant has its paradise in the arms of its mother, its providence; here the infant, the grub, is the providence of the mother. With its patient tooth, which neither the perils of the outside world nor the difficult task of boring through hard wood are able to deter, it clears a way for her to the supreme delights of the sun. ”

“ A female Cantharides is peacefully nibbling her leaf. A lover comes upon the scene, approaches her from behind, suddenly mounts upon her back and embraces her with his two pairs of hind-legs. Then with his abdomen, which he lengthens as much as possible, he energetically slaps that of the female, on the right side and the left by turns. It is like the strokes of a washerwoman's bat, delivered with frenzied rapidity. With his antennæ and his fore-legs, which remain free, he furiously lashes the neck of the victim. ”

“ Adopt such precautions as you please, you pitiable grubs, pose on your sprigs in the attitude of a threatening Sphinx, take refuge in the mysteries of a box, arm yourself with a cuirass of dung: you will none the less pay your tribute in the pitiless conflict; there will always be operators who, varying in cunning, in size, in implements, will inoculate you with their deadly germs.
Not even the lily-dweller, with her dirty ways, is safe. Her grub is as often the prey of another Tachina, larger than that of the Field Crioceris. ”

“ This is the work of patient after-touches which perfect the curves and leave on the soft loam a series of stippled impressions similar to those which the potter of prehistoric days distributed over his big-bellied jars with the ball of his thumb.
That finishes the work. The insect will begin all over again under a fresh carcase; for each burrow has one calabash and no more, even as with the Sacred Beetle and her pears. ”

“ What a life is theirs! A fortnight's feasting in a storehouse of honey; a year of slumber underground; a minute of love in the sunlight; then death!
Once fertilized, restlessly the female at once proceeds to seek a favourable spot wherein to lay her eggs. It was important to note where this exact spot is. Does the female go from cell to cell, confiding an egg to the succulent flanks of each larva, whether this larva belong to the Anthophora or to a parasite of hers, as the mysterious shell whence the Sitaris emerges would incline one to believe? ”