Jean-Henri Fabre

“ Nothing, absolutely nothing, we are told by the two guests in my apparatus. Neither of them appears looking for food on the surface of the pie-dish. The mother does not leave the bottom for a moment; the father alone goes up and down. When he comes up, it is always with a load of rubbish. I am warned of his arrival by the hillock which shakes and partly crumbles under the impetus of the navvy and his load; but the Beetle himself does not appear, for the mouth of the erupting cone remains closed by the plug ejected. Everything happens in secret, sheltered from the indiscretion of the light. ”

“ Leaning over the hole, its new mother seems to console it. She is like a nurse bending over the cradle. Meanwhile her helpful legs are working with a will, scratching around the yawning aperture to obtain the wherewithal to stop it. But the materials, half-dried this time, are hard and unyielding. They are slow in coming; and the quantity is too small for so big a hole. No matter: what with the grub continuing to shoot forth its putty and the other mixing it with her own scrapings, to give it consistency, and afterwards spreading it, the opening closes up. ”

“ The sleepers forthwith awaken, scenting the rich prey defiling close at hand. One of them runs forward; three or four others follow, arousing the whole assembly; those who are buried emerge; the whole band of cut-throats falls upon the passing herd. Then comes an unforgettable sight. The mandibles get to work in all directions; the procession is attacked in the van, in the rear, in the middle; the victims are assailed in the back or the belly at random. The hairy skins are ripped open, their contents escape in a rush of entrails green with the pine-needles that constitute the food ”

“ While he was soaring toward the heights, and making his way into unexplored regions, under the astounded gaze of the most eminent authorities, who saw themselves suddenly equalled and even surpassed, his scientific genius loved also to look downwards, to approach the beginners, to return, as it were, to the starting-point, in order to hold out his hand to them, and to trace out for them, through all the stages of science, the path that he had opened up for himself in the face of unheard-of difficulties. ”

“ Rich though his booty be, the Geotrupes leaves it at sunset to dally in the last gleams of daylight and to go in search of a new workplace. With him, one would say, the wealth acquired does not count; the only thing of value is that to be acquired. Then what does he do with his warehouses, renewed each twilight in favourable weather? It is obvious that the Dung-beetle is incapable of consuming all those provisions in a single night. He has such a superabundance of victuals in his larder that he does not know how to dispose of them; he is surfeited with good things by which he will not profit ”

“ To them it is a gala cake and nothing more. In that part of her work which concerns the family, the Scarabæus mother has no assistant. Alone she rounds her sphere, extracts it from the pile, rolls it backwards by herself in the head-downward posture adopted by the male of the Sisyphus couple; alone she digs her burrow; alone she stores away its contents. Heedless of the laying mother and the brood, the other sex does not assist at all in the exhausting task. How different from the pigmy pill-roller! ”

“ Neither science nor fame could prevent him from suffering. To begin with, there is [381] suffering attaching to these, for all labour has its burden, all light its shadow.
This none knew better than he whose genius was a protracted patience and his life a hard-fought battle. And as though it was his destiny to suffer to the end, he did suffer still when the tardy hour of his fame had struck. Was it not an ordeal still to be assailed by visits and speeches when “nothing was left but rest and silence”? How can a man delight in the incense of his admirers when he is broken with fatigue? ”

“ He lost his sight in his youth, after he had known the joys of light and the wonders of colour. As a compensation for perpetual darkness he has acquired a gentle philosophy, always smiling; an ardent desire to fill, as far as possible, the gaps in his meagre primary education; a sensitiveness of hearing able to seize the subtle delicacies of music; and a fineness of touch most extraordinary in fingers calloused by the labours of the workshop. ”

“ The pointed mitre is lowered; and an angry thrust sends him rolling. We have it: the wizard’s cap is a defensive weapon, a protective crest. The Ram charges with his forehead, the Empusa butts with her mitre.
But this does not mean dinner. I serve up the House-fly, alive. She is accepted, without hesitation. The moment that the Fly comes within reach, the watchful Devilkin turns her head, bends the stalk of her [196] corselet slantwise and, flinging out her forelimb, harpoons the Fly and grips her between her two saws. No Cat pouncing upon a Mouse could be quicker. ”

“ A frisky, sprightly male, in his hurried rush through the crowd, suddenly finds himself confronting a fair passer-by who takes his fancy. She does not gainsay him; and things move quickly.
The foreheads touch, the claws engage; the tails swing with a spacious gesture: they stand up vertically, hook together at the tips and softly stroke each other with a slow caress. The two animals stand on their heads in the manner already described. Soon, the raised bodies sink to the ground; [129] fingers are clasped and the couple start on their stroll without more ado. ”

“ Despite the lateness of the hour, our combined attention allows nothing essential to escape us. We admire the curious yoking of the couples which our presence does not disturb in the least. We find it almost graceful, and the expression is not exaggerated. Semi-translucid and gleaming in the light of the lantern, the happy pair seem carved from a block of yellow amber. With arms outstretched and tails coiled into graceful spirals, they gently stroll about with measured paces. ”

“ He gleans on the very threshold of his door. When he thinks fit, especially at night, he chooses from the heap of pellets one to suit him. Using his clypeus as a lever, he loosens it below; rolling it gently, he brings it to the orifice of the pit, where the booty is swallowed up. More follow, one by one, all easily handled because of the olive-like shape. They roll like casks trundled by the cooper.
When the Sacred Beetle proposes to go banqueting underground far from the madding crowd, he packs his share of victuals into a ball ”

“ He had detected the insect issuing from the ground, had dug at the spot where it made its appearance, and had found, at no great depth, the queer thing which he was bringing me.
Queer it was, and calculated to upset the little that I thought I knew. In shape it was exactly like a tiny pear that had lost all its fresh colour [268] and turned brown in rotting. What could this curious object be, this pretty plaything that seemed to have come from a turner’s workshop? Was it made by human hands? Was it a model of the fruit of the pear-tree intended for some children’s museum? One would say so. ”

“ Henri Fabre has no desire to grapple with it. Living in perpetual amazement, amid the miracles revealed by his genius, he observes, but he does not explain.”
For the moment we can no longer subscribe to the assertions of the learned Academician,6 nor to his fashion of writing history, which is decidedly too free. The truth is that Fabre, who delights in the pageant of the living world, does not always confine himself to recording it; he readily passes from the smallest details of observation to the wide purviews of reason, and he is at times as much a philosopher as a poet and a naturalist. ”

“ The antennæ, in fact, are grasped not far from their roots, so that the mouth of the victim dragged along on its back faces either the thorax or the abdomen of the Sphex, who, standing high on her long legs, takes good care, I am convinced, not to be caught in the mandibles yawning underneath her. At all events, a moment of forgetfulness, a slip, the merest trifle can bring her within the reach of two powerful nippers, which would not neglect the opportunity of taking a pitiless vengeance. ”

“ The brilliance, colour, and vitality which enhance without ever diminishing the high scientific value of his Souvenirs are due, no doubt, to his native qualities, to the limpid and harmonious Gallic genius of which he affords so admirable a type; he owes them also, as we have said, to all those tiny lives, so vibrant with diligence, and so picturesque, whose lights and shades and naïve emotions seem to have found their way into his own heart, into his style ”

“ Oh, my poor joints, grown rusty with age! To suspect the existence of a fine problem underground and not to be able to dig! The zeal survives, as ardent as in the days when I used to pull down the spongy slopes beloved by the Anthophora; the love of research has not abated, but the strength is lacking. Luckily, I have an assistant, in the shape of my son Paul, who lends me the vigour of his wrists and the suppleness of his loins. I am the head, he is the arm. ”

“ If things go as he wishes, he settles, with a quick flutter of his wings, on the extremity of the denuded vestibule. Comes the wedding, as discreet as that of the smaller Psyche. Here is yet another who does not see or at most catches a fleeting glimpse of her for whose sake he has donned Marabou-feathers and a black-velvet cloak.
The recluse on her side is equally impatient. The lovers are short-lived; they die in my cages within three or four days, so that, for long intervals, until the hatching of some late-comer, the female population is [206] short of suitors. ”

“ If I sent one of the boys to plant a stake, I would see him stop frequently on his way, bend down, stand up again, look about and stoop once more, neglecting his straight line and his signals. Another, who was told to pick up the arrows, would forget the iron pin and take up a pebble instead; and a third deaf to the measurements of angles, would crumble a clod of earth between his fingers. Most of them were caught licking a bit of straw. The polygon came to a full stop, the diagonals suffered. ”

“ I consign to the meditations of philosophy these five makers of spherical conserves— [he is speaking of the Scarabæi] —and their numerous rivals. I consign to them these inventors of the spherical box, of greater volume and smaller surface, for provisions liable to dry up, and I ask them how such logical inspirations, such rational provisions, could unfold themselves in the murky intellect of the insect.... The work of the pill-makers propounds a grave problem to him who is capable of reflection. ”

“ She has not far to go: the provisions are there, outside the door, a generous supply which I am careful to replenish. Cautiously, ready to retreat at the least alarm, she makes her way to them with a slow and measured step. Her shield does the rummaging and dissecting, her fore-legs are busy extracting. An armful, quite a modest one, is pulled away, crumbling to pieces. The Copris drags it backwards and disappears underground. In less than two minutes, she is back again. With feathery antennæ outspread, she warily scans the neighbourhood before crossing the threshold of her dwelling. ”

“ And all, human beings, dog, cat, hens, dine at the same time; only each must make the best of what the others cannot use. Azor is content with the bone that big Jacques threw away; the cat is satisfied with a little bread soaked in gravy, a dish quite inadequate to Azor’s needs; the hens pick up the crumbs disdained by Jacques, Azor, and the cat. Martha, it seems, had prepared dinner only for the farm people, and behold, by utilizing the scraps that are worthless to some, many others join in the midday meal. From the scraps disdained by man the dog will gain strength to defend the flock ”

“ After some ten days [122] of this united labour, the couple at last obtain the long, cylindrical loaf. The father has done the grinding, the mother the kneading.
On the 24th of April, everything being now in order, the male leaves the tube of my apparatus. He roams about in the bell-glass, heedless of my presence, he who was at first so timid and apt to dive down the shaft at the first sight of me. He is indifferent to food. A few pellets remain on the surface. He comes upon them at every moment; he disdainfully passes them by. He has but one wish, to get away as fast as he can. ”

“ It must be no light task to bring things to the requisite stage of perfection. The deeper-seated changes are already well-started, solidifying liquid mucilages, bringing order out of chaos; but so far nothing outside betrays what is happening in that mysterious laboratory where everything seems lifeless.
Meanwhile, the hind-legs become released. The great thighs appear in view, tinted on their inner surface with a pale pink, which will soon turn into a streak of bright crimson. The emergence is easy, the bulky haunch clearing the way for the tapering knuckle. ”

“ All go straight to the coarse faggot, which I left in contact with the wallet that was the chrysalis. Time presses. Before making your entrance into the world and going agrazing, you must first be clad. All therefore, with equal fury, attack the old sheath and hastily dress themselves in the mother’s cast clothes. Some turn their attention to bits that happen to be open lengthwise and scrape the soft, white inner layer; others, greatly daring, penetrate into the tunnel of a hollow stalk and go and collect their cotton goods in the dark. ”