Jean-Henri Fabre

“ When, on the return of the warm weather, the insect leaves her hiding-place, which is doubtless not far from the spot where she was born, she easily finds, on the banks by the road-side, her favourite plant, which is already tipping its branches with pale-blue globes. The dear heritage is recognized without hesitation. She climbs into it, rejoices in her nuptial diversions and waits for the azure balls to mature to the requisite stage. The blue thistle is familiar to her though she sees it for the first time. ”

“ The larva, no less than the adult and perhaps more so, is given to slumbering through the severities of the winter. When the poplar unfurls its sticky buds and the Cricket on the greensward strikes up the first bars of his melody, they will be ready, one and all: the forward and backward alike; faithful to the call of spring, all will come forth from the ground, eager to climb the kindly tree and to renew the leaf-rollers’ festival in the sunlight. ”

“ Happily there are others to whom nothing in the majestic problem of things is trivial. They know of what humble dough the bread of thought is kneaded, a bread no less necessary than that made from wheat; they know that husbandmen and inquirers alike feed the world with an accumulation of minute fragments.
Let us take pity on the question and proceed. Without seeing it at work, we already suspect the Weevil’s paradoxical beak of being a drill similar to those which we employ to bore through the hardest substances. Two diamond-points, the mandibles, form its terminal bit. ”

“ With his fore-legs the male Weevil masters his spouse; with his hinder tarsi, gently and at intervals, he strokes her sides. Alternating with these soft caresses are sudden jolts and impetuous jerks. Meanwhile, the object of these attentions, in order to lose no time, works at the thistle-head with her beak and prepares the lodging for her egg. Even in the midst of her wedding the care of the family leaves this laborious insect no repose.
What precisely is the use of the Weevil’s rostrum, this paradoxical nose, such as no carnival mummer would venture to wear? ”

“ An undisturbed and temperate diet is better than an uneasy feast.
Two or three weeks devoted to these pleasures of the table and our grub has become a fat baby. Then the blissful consumer becomes a craftsman. The placid gratification of the belly is followed by the worries of the future. We have to build ourselves a castle in which to effect the metamorphosis.
From all around it the grub collects hairs, which it chops into fragments of different lengths. It places them in position with the tip of its mandibles, butts them with its head and presses them by rolling them with its rump. ”

“ Might not the central portion of the pea be the Weevil-grub’s feeding-bottle?
Fired by one ambition and endowed with equal rights, all the occupants of the seed set out towards the delicious morsel. It is a laborious journey; and frequent halts are made in temporary recesses. The grubs rest; pending better things to come, they frugally crunch the ripe substance around them; they gnaw even more to open a way than to fill their stomachs. ”

“ Now here, by a most unexpected change of tactics, the Cionus-grub, while still quite young, quits its natal cell, the capsule of the mullein; it longs for the outer world, that it may browse in the open air on the bark of a twig; and this entails upon it two inventions elsewhere unknown: the sticky coat, which gives it a firm hold when it moves from place to place, and the gold-beater’s-skin ampulla, which serves to house the nymph. ”

“ They all know where the eggs must be established, but they are profoundly indifferent to what will follow. It is for the grub to muddle through by its own methods. The Pine Cockchafer’s larva dives farther into the sand, seeking for tender rootlets softened by incipient decay. The Capricorn’s, continuing to drag the shell of its egg behind it, nibbles the uneatable for its first mouthful, making flour of the dead bark and sinking a shaft that leads it to the wood, on which it feeds for the next three years. ”

“ For us who plough and sow and reap, wearing ourselves out with toil, she ripens the wheat; she ripens it also for the little Corn-weevil, who, though exempted from the labour of the fields, will nevertheless settle in our granaries and with her pointed beak nibble the heap of corn, grain by grain, to the husk. For us who dig and weed and water, bent with fatigue and burnt by the heat of the day, nature swells the pea-pods ”

“ Chapter xiv THE IRIS-WEEVIL
Plants, with their fruits, have been and still are the main sustenance of mankind. The ancient Paradise of which the eastern legends tell us had no other food-resources. It was a delicious garden with cool rivulets and fruits of every kind, including the apple that was to be so fatal to us. On the other hand, from a very early period, our ills sought to obtain relief by the virtues of simples, virtues that were sometimes real and sometimes, indeed most frequently, imaginary. Our knowledge of plants is thus as old as our infirmities and our need of food. ”

“ The children, it is true, often make up to us for their untalented mothers. Their ingenuity is sometimes amazing, from the time when they are hatched. Witness our Larini. What can the mother do? Nothing but bury the eggs in the blossoms of the thistles. But what a singular industry on the part of the grub which builds itself a thatched hut, upholsters itself a cabin, cards itself a mattress of chopped hairs, makes itself a defensive pitcher, a donjon-keep, with the shellac prepared by its intestine! ”

“ If the Bruchus always adopted the broad bean as the establishment of her family, I could very well explain her exuberant emission of germs on a single pod: a rich supply of food, easily acquired, invites a large colony. The pea, on the other hand, puzzles me. What vagary makes the mother abandon her offspring to starvation on this insufficient legumen? Why so many boarders gathered around a seed which forms the ration of one alone? ”

“ What we see is not the work of a gimlet, which twists, but of an awl, which sinks steadily downwards. The mandibles, the sharp shears affixed to the implement, bite and dig; and that is all. In the end, the rostrum used as a lever, that is to say, bending upon its base, uproots and lifts the detached florets and pushes them a little way outwards. This must cause the slight unevenness which we perceive at any inhabited point. The work of excavation lasts a good quarter of an hour.
Then the mother turns about, finds the opening of the shaft with the tip of her belly and lays the egg. ”

“ At first sight it would seem as if these strange instincts might be explained by the larva’s diet, of which the adult would retain a lively recollection. The caterpillar of the Pieris fed on cabbage-leaves; the caterpillar of the Vanessa fed on nettle-leaves; and each of the two Butterflies, endowed with a faithful memory, exploits the plant which has no attraction for her now, but which was a treat for her in her infancy. ”

“ Let us first realize that each grub needs a ration of one pea, an obligatory ration, amply sufficient for the welfare of one larva, but not big enough for several consumers, nor even for two. A pea for each grub, no more and no less, is the invariable rule.
Procreative economy would therefore demand that the mother, familiar with the pod which she has just explored, should, when emitting her germs, more or less limit their number to that of the peas which it contains. Now there is no limit. To a single ration the impetuous ovaries always offer a multiplicity of consumers. ”

“ If travelling has its pleasures, enough to make the insect forget the delights of the cell in which it digests at peace, it also has its drawbacks. The legless grub can progress only by a sort of creeping gait. It has no instrument of adherence which will enable it to remain fixed to the twig, whence the least breath of wind may make it fall. Necessity is the mother of invention. To guard against the danger of falling, the wanderer smears itself with a viscous fluid, which varnishes it and makes it adhere to the trail which it is following. ”

“ It is done: the acorn is accepted as a good one. The drill is driven in and kept working for hours; then, very often, the insect goes away, despising her work. The laying of the egg does not follow on the boring. What is the object of so great and so long an effort? Can the Weevil simply be piercing the fruit to satisfy her appetite and obtain refreshment? Can the reed-like beak go down to the depths of the barrel to draw, from the likeliest spots, a few mouthfuls of sustaining drink? Can the enterprise be a matter of personal nourishment? ”

“ The Weevils settle on the flowers, which are like so many white Butterflies’ wings: I see some installed at the foot of the upper petal, I see some hidden in the casket of the keel. Others, more numerous these, explore the blossoms and take possession of them. The laying-time has not yet come. It is a mild morning; the sun is hot without being oppressive. This is the moment for nuptial exploits and for raptures amid the splendour of the light. Life therefore is enjoyed for a little while. Couples form, soon part and soon come together again. ”

“ The late-comers, finding the best places taken, allow themselves to die without striving to dislodge the others. For those first installed, a plentiful board and life; for those which lag behind, famine and death.
In August the adults begin to appear outside the seed-pods of the iris. The larva has not the talent which the Pea-weevil’s grub possesses: it does not, by patient nibbling, make any sort of preparation for the exodus. It is the perfect insect itself that contrives the exit-way, which consists of a round hole bored through the tough husk of the seed and the thick wall of the fruit. ”

“ The young abandon their famine-stricken dwelling on the day when they are hatched. They are bold innovators and practise a method which is held in detestation among the Weevils, who are all pre-eminently stay-at-homes: they dare the dangers of the outer world: they travel, passing from one leaf to another in search of food. This strange exodus, unprecedented in a Weevil, is not a mere caprice but a necessity imposed on them by hunger; they migrate because their mother has not provided them with anything to eat. ”

“ After the glee of the Field-mouse, the Jay, the Weevil and so many others, here comes that of man, calculating how much bacon his harvest will bring him. One regret mingles with the rejoicings, that is to see so many acorns scattered on the ground, pierced, spoilt, good for nothing. ”

“ Were she only larger, the resplendent Vine-weevil would occupy a very respectable place among the gems of entomology.
To attract our eyes, she has something better than her brilliancy: she has her industry, which has earned her the hatred of the vine-grower, jealous of his property. The peasant knows her: he even calls her by a special name, an honour rarely bestowed in the world of the smaller creatures. ”

“ All, down to the meagre lentil, are eagerly despoiled; and the haricot, so tempting both in size and in flavour, remains unharmed. It baffles the understanding. For what reason does the Bruchus, who passes without hesitation from the excellent to the indifferent and from the indifferent to the excellent, disdain this delicious seed? She leaves the everlasting pea for the green pea, she leaves the green pea for the broad bean and the vetch, accepting the niggardly scrap and the rich cake with equal satisfaction ”

“ The exploiter of the alder is hardly in danger either: at the foot of her tree, a lover of the trickling brooks, she finds the coolness needed to keep her food-cylinder in good condition. But, when she exploits the hazel-bush, I do not know what conditions help her out of her difficulty.
Lately the newspapers, which noisily echo every piece of absurdity, have been making a certain fuss about the gastric feats of a few poor devils who, to earn their bread, have fasted for thirty or forty days. As in most stunts, admirers were found, ready to encourage those wretched competitions. ”

“ They too possess a long rostrum, capable of opening a well if necessary; nevertheless I never see one standing on an acorn and working at it with his drill. Why take so much trouble? A mere nothing satisfies these frugal eaters. A superficial digging with the tip of the proboscis into the tender leaf yields enough to maintain their strength.
If they, the idlers who have leisure to enjoy the delights of the table, want no more, how will it be with the mothers, busy with the laying? Have they the time to eat and drink? No, the pierced acorn is not a bar at which to lounge, sipping without end. ”