Jean-Henri Fabre

“ The worm of the sepulchre is an invention of cantankerous minds, incapable of seeing things as they are. Covered by but a few inches of earth, the dead can sleep their quiet sleep: no Fly will ever come to take advantage of them.
At the surface of the soil, exposed to the air, the hideous invasion is possible; aye, it is the invariable rule. For the melting down and remoulding of matter, man is no better, corpse for corpse, than the lowest of the brutes. Then the Fly exercises her rights and deals with us as she does with any ordinary animal refuse. ”

“ The unhorsed ones promptly find a leg of the mother, the usual climbing-pole; they swarm up it as fast as they can and recover their places on the bearer's back. The living bark of animals is reconstructed in the twinkling of an eye.
To speak here of mother-love were, I think, extravagant. The Lycosa's affection for her offspring hardly surpasses that of the plant, which is unacquainted with any tender feeling and nevertheless bestows the nicest and most delicate care upon its seeds. The animal, in many cases, knows no other sense of motherhood. What cares the Lycosa for her brood! ”

“ As nothing is made from nothing, the egg supplies first the materials of the new-born animal; then the plastic food, the smith of living creatures, increases the body, up to a certain limit, and renews it as it wears away. The stoker works at the same time, without stopping. Fuel, the source of energy, makes but a short stay in the system, where it is consumed and furnishes heat, whence movement is derived. Life is a fire-box. Warmed by its food, the animal machine moves, walks, runs, jumps, swims, flies, sets its locomotory apparatus going in a thousand manners. ”

“ With its carpenter's gouge, a strong black mandible, short, devoid of notches, scooped into a sharp-edged spoon, it digs the opening of its tunnel. The piece cut out is a mouthful which, as it enters the stomach, yields its scanty juices and accumulates behind the worker in heaps of wormed wood. The refuse leaves room in front by passing through the worker. A labour at once of nutrition and of road-making, the path is devoured while constructed; it is blocked behind as it makes way ahead. That, however, is how all the borers who look to wood for victuals and lodging set about their business. ”

“ At ten o'clock in the evening the walk is little more than a lazy swaying of the body. I foresee an early halt, in consequence of the cold, of fatigue and doubtless also of hunger.
Grazing-time has arrived. The caterpillars have come crowding from all the nests in the greenhouse to browse upon the pine-branches planted by myself beside the silken purses. Those in the garden do the same, for the temperature is mild. The others, lined up along the earthenware cornice, would gladly take part in the feast; they are bound to have an appetite after a ten hours' walk. ”

“ It lays aside its tools, sheds its skin and becomes a nymph, a pupa, weakness personified, in swaddling-clothes, on a soft couch. The head is always turned towards the door. This is a trifling detail in appearance; but it is everything in reality. To lie this way or that in the long cell is a matter of great indifference to the grub, which is very supple, turning easily in its narrow lodging and adopting whatever position it pleases. The coming Capricorn will not enjoy the same privileges. ”

“ The Fly on the ceiling, it is true, occupies the same attitude; but she has her moments of rest: she flies, she walks in a normal posture, she spreads herself flat in the sun. Besides, her acrobatic feats do not cover a long period. The Empusa, on the other hand, maintains her curious equilibrium for ten months on end, without a break. Hanging from the trellis-work, back downwards, she hunts, eats, digests, dozes, casts her skin, undergoes her transformation, mates, lays her eggs and dies. She clambered up there when she was still quite young; she falls down, full of days, a corpse. ”

“ The cherry of our orchards is excellent eating: a maggot contends with us for its possession. In vain do we weigh suns and planets: our supremacy, which fathoms the universe, cannot prevent a wretched worm from levying its toll on the delicious fruit. We make ourselves at home in a cabbage bed: the sons of the Pieris make themselves at home there too. Preferring broccoli to wild radish, they profit where we have profited; and we have no remedy against their competition save caterpillar-raids and egg-crushing, a thankless, tedious, and none too efficacious work. ”

“ In the crevices of this insecure masonry we shall reap a harvest of old Snail-shells, plugged with earth right up to the orifice. The family of the Three-horned Osmia is settled in the spiral of those shells, which is subdivided into chambers by mud partitions.
The Three-pronged Osmia (O. Tridentata, Duf. and Per.) alone creates a home of her own, digging herself a channel with her mandibles in dry bramble and sometimes in danewort.
The Osmia loves mystery. She wants a dark retreat, hidden from the eye. ”

“ The Massagetae might invoke, as an excuse for their atrocious custom, a dearth of provisions, which is an evil counsellor; not so the Necrophori, for, thanks to my generosity, victuals are superabundant, both beneath the soil and on the surface. Famine plays no part in this slaughter. Here we have the aberration of exhaustion, the morbid fury of a life on the point of extinction. As is generally the case, work bestows a peaceable disposition on the grave-digger, while inaction inspires him with perverted tastes. ”

“ My pencil forces a third family upon the already over-burdened Spider; and this too is peacefully accepted. The youngsters huddle up closer, lie one on top of the other in layers and room is found for all. The Lycosa has lost the last semblance of an animal, has become a nameless bristling thing that walks about. Falls are frequent and are followed by continual climbings.
I perceive that I have reached the limits, not of the bearer's good-will, but of equilibrium. The Spider would adopt an indefinite further number of foundlings, if the dimensions of her back afforded them a firm hold. ”

“ This grub, so poor in sensory organs, gives us no little food for reflection with its prescience. It knows that the coming Beetle will not be able to cut himself a road through the oak and it bethinks itself of opening one for him at its own risk and peril. It knows that the Cerambyx, in his stiff armour, will never be able to turn and make for the orifice of the cell; and it takes care to fall into its nymphal sleep with its head to the door. It knows how soft the pupa's flesh will be and upholsters the bedroom with velvet. ”

“ The caterpillar who chances to be at the head of the procession dribbles his thread without ceasing and fixes it on the path which his fickle preferences cause him to take. The thread is so tiny that the eye, though armed with a magnifying-glass, suspects it rather than sees it. ”

“ Daily, if the sky be clear, the Lycosa, carrying her young, comes up from the burrow, leans on the kerb and spends long hours basking in the sun. Here, on their mother's back, the youngsters stretch their limbs delightedly, saturate themselves with heat, take in reserves of motor-power, absorb energy. ”

“ This is the Capricorn's exit-hole. The insect will have but to file the screen a little with its mandibles, to bump against it with its forehead, in order to bring it down; it will even have nothing to do when the window is free, as often happens. The unskilled carpenter, burdened with his extravagant head-dress, will emerge from the darkness through this opening when the summer heats arrive. ”

“ Glutted with light and heat, they have indulged in symphonies all the livelong day. The advent of the night means rest for them, but a rest frequently disturbed. In the dense branches of the plane-trees a sudden sound rings out like a cry of anguish, strident and short. It is the desperate wail of the Cicada, surprised in his quietude by the Green Grasshopper, that ardent nocturnal huntress, who springs upon him, grips him in the side, opens and ransacks his abdomen. ”

“ With a dagger-thrust in the neck, she stabs the jugular of the Locust, Dragon-fly or other prey whereof I am the purveyor; and she as quickly scales the donjon and retires with her capture. The performance is a wonderful exhibition of skill and speed.
Very seldom is a quarry missed, provided that it pass at a convenient distance, within the range of the huntress' bound. But, if the prey be at some distance, for instance on the wire of the cage, the Lycosa takes no notice of it. Scorning to go in pursuit, she allows it to roam at will. She never strikes except when sure of her stroke. ”

“ As these experiments are made in the enclosure of a bell-cage, one might imagine that captivity impels the flock to feed, in the absence of better things, on what it would refuse were it free to hunt for itself. Having naught else within their reach, the starvelings consume any and all Cruciferae, without distinction of species. Can things sometimes be the same in the open fields, where I play none of my tricks? Can the family of the White Butterfly be settled on other Crucifers than the cabbage? ”

“ In absolute fact, there is no rest, apart from that which puts an end to life. The struggle never ceases; some muscle is always toiling, some nerve straining. Sleep, which resembles a return to the peace of non-existence, is, like waking, an effort, here of the leg, of the curled tail; there of the claw, of the jaws.
The transformation is effected about the middle of May, and the adult Empusa makes her appearance. She is even more remarkable in figure and attire than the Praying Mantis. ”

“ If I myself wish to provoke the singular alarm, I have but to tease the Epeira with a bit of straw. You cannot have a swing without an impulse of some sort. The terror-stricken Spider, who wishes to strike terror into others, has hit upon something much better. With nothing to push her, she swings with the floor of ropes. There is no effort, no visible exertion. Not a single part of the animal moves; and yet everything trembles. Violent shaking proceeds from apparent inertia. ”

“ When he wishes to return to the open daylight, after resting in a short burrow against the rim of the wire cover, the Beetle, seeing a little light filtering down through the loose soil, reascends by the path of entry, incapable of telling himself that it would suffice to prolong the tunnel as far in the opposite direction for him to reach the outer world beyond the wall and gain his freedom. ”

“ The irresistible attraction of the sunlight comes to my aid. If I lay one of my tubes horizontally on the table, turning one end towards the full light of a sunny window, the captives at once make for the brighter end and play about there for a long while, without seeking to retreat. If I turn the tube in the opposite direction, the crowd immediately shifts its quarters and collects at the other end. The brilliant sunlight is its great joy. With this bait, I can send it whithersoever I please. ”

“ When shall we have an entomological laboratory for the study not of the dead insect, steeped in alcohol, but of the living insect; a laboratory having for its object the instinct, the habits, the manner of living, the work, the struggles, the propagation of that little world with which agriculture and philosophy have most seriously to reckon? ”

“ But there is no fear of this danger: the knowledge of our bit of an intestine is too sound in things of the future for the grub to neglect the formality of keeping its head to the door. At the end of spring, the Capricorn, now in possession of his full strength, dreams of the joys of the sun, of the festivals of light. He wants to get out. What does he find before him? A heap of filings easily dispersed with his claws; next, a stone lid which he need not even break into fragments: it comes undone in one piece ”

“ For a long time, with jerky steps, the mother explores the body in every direction; she takes her stand by preference on the head, which she sounds by tapping on it with her front tarsi. She knows that the openings which she needs are there, under the paper; but she also knows how frail are her grubs, how powerless to pierce their way through the strange obstacle which stops her as well and interferes with the work of her ovipositor. The cowl inspires her with profound distrust. Despite the tempting bait of the veiled head, not an egg is laid on the wrapper, slight though it may be. ”

“ There remains touch, the far-spreading, passive sense common to all live flesh that quivers under the goad of pain. The sensitive schedule of the Cerambyx-grub, therefore, is limited to taste and touch, both exceedingly obtuse. This almost brings us to Condillac's statue. The imaginary being of the philosopher had one sense only, that of smell, equal in delicacy to our own; the real being, the ravager of the oak, has two, inferior, even when put together, to the former, which so plainly perceived the scent of a rose and distinguished it so clearly from any other. ”

“ The Cerambyx-larva strengthens its chisels with a stout, black, horny armour that surrounds the mouth; yet, apart from its skull and its equipment of tools, the grub has a skin as fine as satin and white as ivory. This dead white comes from a copious layer of grease which the animal's spare diet would not lead us to suspect. True, it has nothing to do, at every hour of the day and night, but gnaw. The quantity of wood that passes into its stomach makes up for the dearth of nourishing elements. ”

“ We have, when all is said, but one means of protection, which is to watch and inspect the cabbage-leaves assiduously and crush the slabs of eggs between our finger and thumb and the caterpillars with our feet. Nothing is so effective as this method, which makes great demands on one's time and vigilance. What pains to obtain an unspoilt cabbage! 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! ”

“ In vain I change the flock of caterpillars and vary their age; in vain I change the squad of parasites; in vain I follow events in the jar for long hours, morning and evening, both in a dim light and in the full glare of the sun: I succeed in seeing nothing, absolutely nothing, on the parasite's side, that resembles an attack. No matter what the ill-informed authors say—ill-informed because they had not the patience to see for themselves—the conclusion at which I arrive is positive: to inject the germs, the Microgaster never attacks the caterpillars. ”