Jean-Henri Fabre

“ The Scorpion knows nothing of these diversions. Once she becomes a mother, for some time she does not leave her home, not even in the evening, at the hour when others sally forth to frolic. Barricaded in her cell, not troubling to eat, she watches over the upbringing of her young.
As a matter of fact, those frail creatures have a delicate test to undergo: they have, one might say, to be born a second time. They prepare for it by immobility and by an inward labour not unlike that which turns the larva into the perfect insect. ”

“ At its touch, the shell recovers the softness of its early days, the casket becomes yielding; the insect makes play with its legs, pushes with its back; it is free. It is, in fact, in the month of September, during the first rains which herald the coming autumn, that the Scarab leaves the native burrow and comes to enliven the pastoral sward, even as the former generation enlivened it in the spring. ”

“ To complete the cycle of the year in the full-grown form, to see one’s self surrounded by one’s sons at the spring festivals, to double and treble one’s family: that surely is a most exceptional privilege in the insect world. The Apids, the aristocracy of instinct, perish, once the honey-pot is filled; the Butterflies, the aristocracy not of instinct, but of dress, die when they have fastened their packet of eggs in a propitious spot ”

“ In August, I break the casket in which I hear the helpless prisoner fretting. The insect, the only one of its species, is placed in a volery. Provisions are fresh and plentiful. This is the moment, I say to myself, when we take refreshment after so long an abstinence. Well, I am wrong: the new recruit sets no store by the victuals, notwithstanding [60] my invitations, my appeals to the appetizing heap. What he wants above all is the joys of light. He climbs the metal trellis, sets himself in the sun and there, motionless, takes his fill of its beams. ”

“ Here is a first difficult step: the Beetle is wending his way athwart a slope and the heavy mass tends to follow the incline; but the insect, for reasons best known to itself, prefers to cut across this natural road, a bold plan which a false step or a grain of sand disturbing the balance may defeat. The false step is made; the ball rolls to the bottom of the valley; and the insect, toppled over by the impetus of its load, kicks about, gets up on its legs again and hastens to harness itself once more. The mechanism is working better than ever. ”

“ A flutter of wings rises from the depths. Run to earth in her private apartments, the Lycosa is doubtless struggling with the intruder. That noise of wings is the song of victory of the Calicurgus, unless, indeed, it be her death-song. The murderer may well be the murdered. Which of the two will emerge from below alive?
It is the Lycosa, who hurriedly scampers out and takes up her stand at the entrance to the burrow in her position of defence, with her fangs open and her four front-legs outstretched. ”

“ It settles amid ordure the creatures most highly-endowed with family qualities. True, from there it mounts, with a sudden flight, to the sublimities of the bird.
The little worm is hatched in about a week: a strange and paradoxical being. On its back, it has an enormous sugar-loaf hump, the weight of which drags it over and capsizes it each time it tries to stand on its legs and walk. At every moment, it staggers and falls under the burden of the hunch.
Unable to keep its hump upright, the grub of the Onthophagus lies down on its side and licks the cream of its cell all around it. ”

“ THE INSECT CHAPTER I THE SACRED BEETLE
The building of the nest, the safeguard of the family, furnishes the loftiest expression of the instinctive faculties. That ingenious architect, the bird, teaches us as much; and the insect, with its still more varied talents, repeats the lesson, telling us that maternity is the supreme inspirer of the instinct. Placed in charge of the duration of the species, which is of more serious interest than the preservation of individuals, maternity awakens a marvellous foresight in the drowsiest intelligence ”

“ To see them so pensively seated around a ball of dung, one would think that they were aware of their task as scavengers of the earth and that they consciously devoted themselves to that marvellous chemistry which out of filth brings forth the flower, the joy of our eyes, and the Beetles’ elytra, the ornament of our lawns in spring. For the purpose of this transcendental work, which is to turn into live matter the residue discarded by the horse and the mule, despite the perfection of their digestive organs, the Dung-beetle must needs be specially equipped. ”

“ The burrow is ready. It is a cavity dug in soft earth, usually in sand, shallow, the size of one’s fist and communicating with the outside by a short channel just large enough for the passage of the ball. As soon as the provisions are safely housed, the Scarab shuts himself in by stopping up the entrance to his dwelling with rubbish reserved for the purpose in a corner. Once the door is closed, no sign outside betrays the banqueting-hall. And, now, welcome mirth and jollity! All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds! ”

“ Urged by the labour of the ovaries, the insect resumes its interrupted work.
In certain cases, I see it, still on the surface, destroying its ball, ripping it up, cutting it to pieces, shredding it. This is not in the least the act of one in despair who, finding herself a captive, breaks the cherished object in her bewilderment. It is an act of wise hygienics. A scrupulous inspection of the morsel gathered in haste, among lawless competitors, is often necessary, for supervision is not always easy on the harvesting-spot itself, in the midst of thieves and robbers. ”

“ The insect does not aim at so much glory. It confines itself to showing us life in the inexhaustible variety of its manifestations; it helps us to decipher in some small measure the obscurest book of all, the book of ourselves. ”

“ The Scorpion, clad in her young assembled to form a white muslin mantlet, is a spectacle worthy of attention. She remains motionless, with her tail curled on high. If I bring a rush of straw too near the family, she at once lifts her two claws in an angry attitude, rarely adopted in her own defence. The two fists are raised in a sparring posture, the nippers open wide, ready to thrust and parry. The tail is seldom brandished: to loosen it suddenly would give a shock to the spine and perhaps make a part of the burden fall to the ground. ”

“ No elsewhere, in the sting-bearing order, is this original sort of groove in use. It is the distinctive mark, the blazon of the family.
The works begin in April, discreetly and betrayed only by tiny mounds of fresh earth. There is no animation in the work-yards. The labourers show themselves very seldom, so busy are they at the bottom of their pits. At moments, here and there, the summit of a mole-hill moves and tumbles down the slopes of the cone: it is a worker coming up with her armful of rubbish and shooting it outside, without showing herself in the open. ”

“ On the following days, nothing: the Copris goes out no more. Enough treasure has been amassed in a single night’s sitting. Let us wait a while and leave the insect time to stow its harvest as it pleases.
Before the week is out, I dig up the soil of the volery and lay bare the burrow, the victualling of which I have partly followed. As in the fields, it is a spacious hall, with an irregular, surbased ceiling and an almost level floor. In a corner is a round hole, similar to the orifice of the neck of a bottle. ”

“ Before the sun becomes too hot, they are there in their hundreds, large and small, promiscuously, of every sort, shape and size, hastening to carve themselves a slice of the common cake. There are some that work in the open air and scrape the surface; there are some that dig themselves galleries in the thick of the heap, in search of choice veins; others work the lower stratum and bury their spoil without delay in the underlying ground; others—the smallest—stand aside to crumble a morsel that has fallen from the mighty excavations of their more powerful fellow-workers. ”

“ The smallest insect village has become familiar to me: I know each fruit-branch where the Praying Mantis perches; each bush where the pale Italian Cricket strums amid the calmness of the summer nights; each wad-clad blade of grass scraped by the Anthidium, that maker of cotton bags; each cluster of lilac worked by the Megachile, the leaf-cutter. ”

“ If war affected humanity alone, perhaps the future would have peace in store for us, seeing that generous minds are working for it with might and main; but the scourge also rages in the brute, which, in its obstinate way, will never listen to reason. Once the evil is laid down as a general condition, it perhaps becomes incurable. Life in the future, there is every cause to fear, will be what it is to-day, a perpetual massacre. ”

“ There are some who clamber up the mother’s tail, perch on the top of the bend and seem to delight in looking down from that point of vantage upon the crowd. More acrobats arrive, who dislodge them and take their places. All want their share in the curiosities provided by the gazebo.
The bulk of the family is around the mother; there is a constant swarm of brats that crawl under the belly and there squat, leaving their forehead, with the gleaming black eye-points, outside. The more restless prefer the mother’s legs, which to them represent a gymnasium ”

“ Unfit to move over a flat surface, because of its short, weak legs; lacking, moreover, the Cetonia’s eccentric means of locomotion on its back, the big-bellied worm does not dream of running away: it rolls itself up. The Scolia, with her powerful nippers, grabs its skin, now at once place, now at another. Buckled into an arch whose two ends almost meet, she strives to thrust the tip of her belly into the narrow opening of the volute formed by the grub. ”

“ Besides, his short, awkward legs seem radically opposed to any such art.
In May, or June at latest, comes laying-time. The insect, itself so ready to fill its belly with the most sordid materials, becomes particular, where the portion of its family is concerned. Like the Sacred Beetle, it now wants the soft produce of the sheep, deposited in a single lump. Even when copious, the cake is buried on the spot in its entirety. Not a trace of it remains outside. Economy demands that it be gathered to the last crumb. ”

“ The grandmother who, dispensed by age from maternal worries, mounts guard at the entrance of the home and watches over the safety of the family tells us of sudden births in the genesis of the instincts; she shows us an immediate capacity which nothing, either in her own past conduct or in the actions of her daughters, could have led us to suspect. Timorous in her prime, in the month of May, when she lived alone in the burrow of her making, she has become gifted, in her decline, with a superb contempt of danger and dares, in her impotence, what she never dared do in her strength. ”

“ I place the lantern inside, in the centre of the cage. There is a good light everywhere. Far from being scared, the Scorpions gain in gladness. They hasten up around the beacon; some even try to climb it, so as to be nearer the flame. They succeed in doing so by means of the frames containing the glass squares. They hang on to the edges of the tin strips and stubbornly, heedless of slipping, end by reaching the top. There, motionless, lying partly on the glass, partly on the support of the metal casing, they gaze the whole evening long, fascinated by the glory of the wick. ”

“ Formerly, when her tyrant, the Gnat, entered her home in her presence, or, more often, stood at the entrance, face to face with herself, the silly Bee did not stir, did not even threaten the red-eyed bandit, the dwarf whose doom she could so easily have sealed. Was it terror on her part? No, for she attended to her duties with her usual punctiliousness; no, for the strong do not allow themselves to be thus petrified by the weak. ”

“ If, with the camel-hair broom, I dislodge a mother’s family, wholly or in part, and place it within reach of a second mother, herself carrying her family, the latter will collect the young ones by armfuls, as she would her own offspring, and very kindly allow the newcomers to mount upon her back. One would say that she adopts them, were the expression not too ambitious. There is no adoption. It is the same blindness as that of the Lycosa, who is incapable of distinguishing between her own family and the family of others, and welcomes all that swarms about her legs. ”

“ The ascent is dangerous and a mere nothing may yet spoil all. For see, a leg slips on a smooth bit of gravel! Down come ball and Dung-beetle, all mixed up together. And the Beetle begins over again, with indefatigable persistency. Ten times, a score of times, he will attempt the thankless ascent, until his obstinacy vanquishes all obstacles, or until, recognizing the uselessness of his efforts, he takes to the level road. ”

“ It remains for us to examine the neck of the pear. What can be its object, its use? The reply forces itself upon us irresistibly. This neck contains the egg, in the hatching-chamber. Now every germ, whether of plant or animal, needs air, the primary stimulus of life. To admit that vivifying combustible, the air, the shell of a bird’s egg is riddled with an endless number of pores. The pear of the Sacred Beetle may be compared with the egg of the hen. Its shell is the rind, hardened by pressure, with a view to avoiding untimely desiccation ”