Jean-Henri Fabre

“ The Great Peacock becomes a Moth only in order to perpetuate his species. He knows nothing of eating. While so many others, jolly companions one and all, flit from flower to flower, unrolling the spiral of their proboscis and dipping it into the honeyed cups, he, the incomparable faster, wholly freed from the bondage of the belly, has no thought of refreshment. His mouth-parts are mere rudiments, vain simulacra, not real organs capable of performing their functions. Not a sup enters his stomach: a glorious privilege, save that it involves a brief existence. ”

“ The breach in the tent provokes not a sign of excitement. They move to and fro on the surface of the nest; they work, they spin as usual. There is no change, absolutely none, in their behaviour. When the road covered chances to bring some of them to the brink of the ravine, we see no alacrity on their part, no sign of anxiety, no attempt to close up the two edges of the slit. They simply strive to accomplish the difficult crossing and to continue their stroll as though they were walking on a perfect web. ”

“ And what a debt do we not owe to those humble scrapers of the soil, those ragged heroes who provide us with the wherewithal to live!
To eat and digest, to accumulate reserves whence the Butterfly will issue: that is the caterpillar’s one and only business. The Cabbage-caterpillar performs it with insatiable gluttony. Incessantly it browses, incessantly digests: the supreme felicity of an animal which is little more than an intestine. There is never a distraction, unless it be certain see-saw movements which are particularly curious when several caterpillars are grazing side by side, abreast. ”

“ But a second caterpillar steps on the slender footboard and doubles it with his thread; a third trebles it; and all the others, however many there be, add the sticky spray from their spinnerets, so much so that, when the procession has marched by, there remains, as a record of its passing, a narrow white ribbon whose dazzling whiteness shimmers in the sun. Very much more sumptuous than ours, their system of road-making consists in upholstering with silk instead of macadamizing. We sprinkle our roads with broken stones and level them by the pressure of a heavy steam-roller ”

“ Peace reigns as soon as the stomach is certain of being filled without a struggle. A pine-needle or even less suffices for the caterpillar’s meal; and that needle is always there, waiting to be eaten, is there in inexhaustible numbers, almost on the threshold of the home. When dinner-time arrives, we caterpillars go out, we take the air, we walk a little in procession; then, without laborious seeking, without jealous rivalries, we seat ourselves at the banquet. The table is plentifully spread and will never be bare, so large and generous is the pine ”

“ Let us leave him to complete his coat. I give a puff; and the creature is swallowed up in the crater of the egg-cup.
And this speck is alive. It is industrious; it is versed in the art of blanket-making. An orphan, born that moment, it knows how to cut itself out of its dead mother’s old clothes the wherewithal to clothe itself in its turn. Soon it will become a carpenter, an assembler of timber, to make a defensive covering for its delicate fabric. What must instinct be, to be capable of awakening such industries in an atom! ”

“ Nightly the visitors turn up, in squads of twelve, twenty or more. The female, a lusty, big-bellied matron, clings firmly to the trellis-work of the cage. She makes no movement, gives not so much as a flutter of the wings, seems indifferent to what is going on. Nor is there any odour, so far as the most sensitive nostrils in the household can judge, nor any rustle perceptible to the most delicate hearing among my family, all of whom are called in to bear evidence. ”

“ Some days later, the recluse comes out of the sheath and shows herself in all her wretchedness. Call that little fright a Moth! [196] One cannot easily get used to the idea of such poverty. The caterpillar of the start was no humbler-looking. There are no wings, none at all; no silky fur either. At the tip of the abdomen, a round, tufty pad, a crown of dirty-white velvet; on each segment, in the middle of the back, a large rectangular dark patch: these are the sole attempts at ornament. The mother Psyche renounces all the beauty which her name of Moth promised. ”

“ The greenhouse is full of life. Numerous festoons of caterpillars, issuing from the nests, meander along the sand on the shelf. Above them, at every moment, the ring on the ledge of the vase breaks up and comes together again. For the first time I see daring leaders who, drunk with heat, standing only on their hinder prolegs at the extreme edge of the earthenware rim, fling themselves forward into space, twisting about, sounding the depths. ”

“ As I begin to see into the matter more clearly, I hesitate to torture or destroy a single creature in God’s great community. The life of the least of these is a thing to be respected. We can take it away, but we cannot give it. Peace to those innocents, so little interested in our investigations! What does our restless curiosity matter to their calm and sacred ignorance? If we wish to know, let us pay the price ourselves as far as possible. The acquisition of an idea is well worth the sacrifice of a bit of skin. ”

“ Soon ripe for the transformation, my grubs leave the dining-room of the watch-glass as they would have left the caterpillar’s belly; they come to the ground to try and weave their tiny cocoons. They fail in the attempt and perish. They have missed a suitable support, that is to say, the silky carpet provided by the dying caterpillar. No matter: I have seen enough to convince me. The larvae of the Microgaster do not eat in the strict sense of the word: they live on soup; and that soup is the caterpillar’s blood. ”

“ The Pine Processionary knows nothing of privation. He knows as little of family ties, another source of unrelenting competition. To make ourselves a place in the sun is but a half of the struggle imposed upon us by life: we must also, as far as possible, prepare a place for our successors; and, as the preservation of the species is of greater importance than that of the individual, the struggle for the future is even fiercer than the struggle for the present. ”

“ If there were hundreds, if there were thousands of them in the same nest, there would be no difference between any of them.
They are all the same size and equally strong; all wear the same dress; all possess the same gift for spinning; and all with equal zeal expend the contents of their silk-glands for the general welfare. No one idles, no one lounges along when there is work to be done. ”

“ The sack with which he has managed to cover himself, very skilfully for that matter, is lamentably flabby. It sags and rumples at every movement of the insect’s body. Moreover, it is made heavy with sand and bristles with spikes in every direction, which catch in the dust of the road and make all progress impossible. Thus anchored to the ground, the caterpillar wastes his strength in efforts to shift his position. It takes him hours to make a start and to move his cumbrous dwelling a fraction of an inch. ”

“ And then lovely sand, soft to the touch, easy to dig into tunnels, easy to build into rows of huts which we thatch with moss and surmount with a bit of reed by way of a chimney; and the delicious lunch off an apple to the sound of the Æolian harps softly sighing through the pine-needles!
Yes, for the children it is a real paradise, where one goes as a reward for well-learnt lessons. The grown-ups also have their share of enjoyment. ”

“ As preliminary practice for the thick overcoat of full-grown age, he tries his hand on cotton capes. Even so does the Pine Processionary, as soon as hatched, weave first delicate tents, then gauzy cupolas, as harbingers of the mighty wallet in which the community will make its home. Both alike are harassed from the day of their birth by the presentiment of the future; they start life by binding themselves apprentices to the trade that is to safeguard them one day.
No, the Psyche is not more sensitive to cold than any other smooth-skinned caterpillar; he is a creature of foresight. ”

“ Behold me to-day the Providence of a thousand nurselings thrust upon me by my studies. I try a little of everything. The tender leaves of the elm appear to suit. If I serve them up one day, I find them next morning nibbled on the surface, in small patches. Tiny grains of impalpable black dust, scattered here and there, tell me that the intestines have been at work. This gives me a moment of satisfaction which will be readily understood by any breeder of a herd whose diet is unknown. The hope of success gains strength: I know how to feed my vermin. ”

“ I have at my disposal absolutely none of the apparatus dear to science, not even a modest thermometer, for my unlucky star continues in the ascendant, proving as unkind to-day as when I learnt chemistry with pipe-bowls for crucibles and bottles that once contained sweets for retorts. I confine myself to visiting nightly the Processionaries in the greenhouse and those in the garden. It is a hard task, especially as I have to go to the far end of the enclosure, often in weather when one would not turn a Dog out of doors. ”

“ What a miserable creature she is, a great deal uglier than the original caterpillar! Here transfiguration spells disfigurement, progress means retrogression. What we have before our eyes is a wrinkled satchel, an [208] earthy-yellow sausage; and this horror, worse than a maggot, is a Moth in the full bloom of life, a genuine adult Moth. She is the betrothed of the elegant black Bombyx, all plumed with Marabou-feathers, and represents to him the last word in beauty. As the proverb says, beauty lies in lovers’ eyes: a profound truth which the Psyche confirms in striking fashion. ”

“ To protect himself from the weather, our chilly, bare-skinned Psyche builds himself a portable shelter, a travelling cottage which the owner never leaves until he becomes a Moth. It is something better than a hut on wheels with a thatched roof to it: it is a hermit’s frock, made of an unusual sort of frieze. ”

“ I was amazed at my collection, which comprised the greater part of the hypogean fungi in my neighbourhood.
What a variety of structure and above all of odour, the primary quality in this question of scent! There are some that have nothing more noticeable than a vague fungous mustiness, which is more or less evident in all. Some smell of turnips, of rotten cabbage; some are fetid enough to fill the collector’s house with their stench. The real truffle alone possesses the aroma dear to the epicure. ”