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Title: More Beetles
Author: Jean-Henri Fabre
Translator: Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
Release Date: January 19, 2022 [eBook #67201]
Language: English
Produced by: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MORE BEETLES ***
MORE BEETLES
BY
J. HENRI FABRE
TRANSLATED BY
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos
FELLOW OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1922
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE
This, if we count The Life of the Weevil as the third, is the fourth
and last volume on Beetles in the Collected English Edition of Fabre’s
entomological works. The first was entitled The Sacred Beetle and
Others; the second The Glow-worm and Other Beetles.
Of the fourteen chapters, part of the four devoted to the Minotaur
appeared, in an abbreviated form, in The Life and Love of the Insect,
prepared by myself for Messrs. Adam and Charles Black and published in
America by the Macmillan Co. Similarly, The Pine Cockchafer and the two
chapters on the Gold Beetles occur in Mr. Fisher Unwin’s Social Life in
the Insect World (published in America by the Century Co.), translated
by Mr. Bernard Miall, whom I take this opportunity of thanking for his
assistance in the translation of the present volume. These seven
chapters are included in the Collected Edition by arrangement with the
publishers named.
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos.
Chelsea, 29 September, 1921.
CONTENTS
PAGE
TRANSLATOR’S NOTE v
CHAPTER
I THE CETONIÆ 1
II SAPRINI, DERMESTES AND OTHERS 34
III THE BEADED TROX 55
IV MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: THE BURROW 72
V MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: FIRST ATTEMPTS AT OBSERVATION 98
VI MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: FURTHER OBSERVATIONS 125
VII MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: MORALITY 152
VIII THE ERGATES; THE COSSUS 172
IX THE PINE COCKCHAFER 194
X THE VEGETARIAN INSECTS 215
XI THE DWARFS 238
XII SOME ANOMALIES 255
XIII THE GOLD BEETLES: THEIR FOOD 278
XIV THE GOLD BEETLES: THEIR NUPTIAL HABITS 299
MORE BEETLES
CHAPTER I
THE CETONIÆ
My hermitage boasts a long, wide lilac-walk. When May is here and the
two rows of bushes, bending beneath their load of clustering blooms,
form pointed arches overhead, this walk becomes a chapel, in which the
loveliest festival of the year is celebrated beneath the kisses of the
morning sun: a peaceful festival, with no flags flapping at the
windows, no expenditure of gun-powder, no drunken squabbles; a festival
of simple creatures disturbed neither by the harsh brass band of the
dance nor by the shouts of the crowd acclaiming the amateur who has
just won a silk handkerchief at the hop, skip and jump. Vulgar delights
of drinks and crackers, how far removed are you from this solemn
celebration!
I am one of the worshippers in the chapel of the lilacs. My orison,
which cannot be translated into words, is a tender and intimate
emotion. Devoutly I make my stations from one column of verdure to
another, telling step by step my observer’s rosary. My prayer is an
“Oh!” of admiration.
To this delicious festival pilgrims have hastened, to gain the Lenten
indulgences and to slake their thirst. Here, dipping their tongues by
turns into the holy-water stoup of the same flower, are the Anthophora
[1] and her tyrant the Melecta. [2] Robber and victim sip their nectar
like good neighbours. There is no ill-feeling: between them. Both
attend to their own affairs in peace. They seem not to know each other.
The Osmiæ, [3] clad in black-and-red velvet, dust their ventral brushes
with pollen and make hoards of meal in the reeds round about. Here are
the Eristales, [4] noisy, giddy-pated insects, whose wings shimmer in
the sun like scales of mica. Drunk with syrup, they withdraw from the
festival and sleep off their debauch in the shadow of a leaf.
These others are Wasps, Polistes, [5] hot-tempered swashbucklers. When
these intolerant creatures are abroad, peaceful insects withdraw and
establish themselves elsewhere. Even the Hive-Bee, predominating in
numbers and ever ready to unsheathe her sting, makes way for them, busy
as she is gathering in the harvest.
These thick-set, richly variegated Moths are Sesiæ, with wings not
dusted with scales throughout. The bare zones, like so much transparent
gauze, contrast with the covered zones and are an added beauty. The
sober sets off the magnificent.
Here is a crazy swarm, eddying, receding, returning, rising and
falling. It is the ballet of the common Butterfly-folk, the Cabbage
Butterflies, [6] all white, with black, eye-shaped dots. They flirt in
mid-air, pursuing and pressing their attentions on one another, until,
weary of frolic, now one, now another of the dancers alights once more
upon the lilacs, quenching her thirst from the amphoræ of the flowers.
While the proboscis dives down the narrow throat of the blossom,
sucking the nectar at the base, the wings, gently fluttering, are
raised above the back, expanding anew and again standing erect.
Almost as numerous but less sudden in flight, because of his
wide-spreading wings, is the Machaon, the magnificent Swallow-tail
Butterfly, with the orange spots and the blue crescents.
The children have come to join me. They are enraptured by this elegant
creature, which always escapes their pouncing hands and flies a little
farther to taste the nectar of the flowers while moving its wings after
the fashion of the Cabbage Butterfly. If the pump is working quietly in
the sunlight, if the syrup is rising easily, this gentle fanning of the
wings is in all these Butterflies a sign of satisfaction.
A catch! Anna, the youngest of the whole household, gives up all hope
of capturing the Swallow-tails, who never wait for her nimble little
hand to seize them. She has found something more to her liking. It is
the Cetonia. The handsome insect has not yet recovered from the chill
of morning; it lies slumbering all golden on the lilac-blossoms,
unconscious of danger, incapable of flight. It is plentiful. Five or
six are quickly caught. I intervene, so that the rest may be left in
peace. The booty is placed in a box, with a bed of blossoms. Presently,
during the heat of the day, the Cetonia, with a long thread tied to one
leg, will fly in circles round the little girl’s head.
Childhood is pitiless because it does not understand, for nothing is
more cruel than ignorance. None of my madcaps will heed the sufferings
of the insect, a melancholy galley-slave chained to a cannon-ball.
These artless minds find amusement in torture. I dare not always call
them to order, for I admit that I on my side am also guilty, though I
am ripened by experience, to some extent civilized and beginning to
know a thing or two. They inflict suffering for the sake of amusement
and I for the sake of information: is it not really the same thing? Is
there a very definite line of demarcation between the experiments of
knowledge and the puerilities of childhood? I cannot see it.
Human barbarity in the past employed the rack to force a prisoner to
speak. Am I anything but a torturer when I interrogate my insects and
put them to the rack to wrest some secret from them? Let Anna get such
pleasure as she can out of her prisoners, for I am meditating something
worse. The Cetonia has things to reveal to us, things that will
interest us, beyond a doubt. Let us try to obtain these revelations. We
cannot, of course, do so without serious inconvenience to the insect.
So be it; and now let us proceed: we will silence our kindly scruples
for the sake of the story.
Among the guests at the festival of the lilacs the Cetonia deserves to
be most honourably mentioned. He is of a good size, which lends itself
to observation. Though deficient in elegance with his massive,
square-cut build, he has splendour in his favour: the gleam of copper,
the flash of gold, or the austere magnificence of bronze as it leaves
the brass-founder’s burnisher. He is a regular frequenter of my
enclosure, a neighbour, and will therefore spare me the trips which are
beginning to tell upon me. Lastly—and this is an excellent quality when
one wishes to be understood by all one’s readers—he is known to
everybody, if not by his classic name, [7] at least as an object that
often meets the eye.
Who has not seen him, like a great emerald lying at the heart of a
rose, whose tender blush he enhances by the richness of his jewellery?
In this voluptuous bed of stamens and petals he is encrusted,
motionless; he remains there night and day, intoxicated by the heady
fragrance, drunk with nectar. It needs the stimulus of fierce sunlight
to arouse him from his bliss and set him soaring with a buzzing flight.
To watch the idle Beetle in his sybaritic bed, without further
information, one would hardly suspect him of gluttony. What nourishment
can he find on a rose or a cluster of hawthorn-blossom? At most a tiny
drop of sugary exudation, for he does not browse upon the petals, still
less upon the foliage. And can this, a mere nothing, satisfy that big
body? I hesitate to believe it.
In the first week of August I placed in a cage fifteen Cetoniæ that had
just burst their shells in my rearing-jars. Bronze above and violet
underneath, they belong to the species C. metallica, Fab. I provide
them, according to the resources of the day, with pears, plums, melon
or grapes.
It is a joy to see them feast. Once at table they do not budge. Not a
movement, not even a shifting of the feet. With their heads in the
fruit-pulp, often with their bodies completely submerged, they sip and
swallow night and day, in the darkness, in the sunlight, without a
break. Surfeited with sweets, the guzzlers hold on. Collapsing under
the table, that is to say, under the deliquescent fruit, they still
lick their lips, in the blissful drowsiness of a child that drops
asleep with its slice of bread and jam at its lips.
There is no sportiveness in their orgy, even when the sun shines
fiercely into the cage. All activity is suspended; the time is wholly
devoted to the joys of the stomach. In this torrid heat it is so
pleasant to lie under the greengage, oozing with juice! With such good
things at hand, why go flying across the fields where everything is
parched? None dreams of such a thing. There is no scaling of the walls
of the cage, no sudden unfurling of the wings in an attempt to escape.
This life of junketing has already lasted a fortnight without producing
satiety. Such a protracted banquet is not frequent; we do not find it
even in the Dung-beetles, who are zealous eaters. When the Sacred
Beetle, spinning his little unbroken cord of intestinal refuse, has
remained a whole day on a tasty morsel, it is the most that the
gormandizer can allow himself. [8] But my Cetoniæ have been feasting on
the sweets of the plum and pear for a full fortnight; and there is no
sign yet that they have had enough. When will the orgy make way for the
wedding and the cares of the future?
Well, there will be no wedding and no family-cares this year. These are
put off till next year: a singular postponement, quite at variance with
the usual custom, which is to be extremely expeditious in these
important matters. It is the season of fruits; and the Cetonia, a
passionate glutton, means to enjoy these good things without being
diverted from them by the worries of egg-laying. The gardens offer the
luscious pear and the wrinkled fig, its eye moist with syrup. The
greedy creature takes possession of them and becomes oblivious to all
else.
However, the dog-days are becoming more and more pitiless. Day after
day, another load of brushwood, as our peasants say, is added to the
furnace of the sun. Excessive heat, like cold, produces a suspension of
life. To kill the time, creatures that are grilled or frozen go to
sleep. The Cetoniæ in my breeding-cage bury themselves in the sand, a
couple of inches down. The sweetest fruits no longer tempt them: it is
too hot.
It takes the moderate temperature of September to wake them from their
torpor. At this season they reappear on the surface; they settle down
to my bits of melon-rind, or slake their thirst at a small bunch of
grapes, but soberly, taking only short draughts. The hunger-fits of
early days and the interminable filling of the belly have gone for
ever.
Now comes the cold weather. Again my captives disappear underground.
Here they pass the winter, protected only by a layer of sand a few
inches in depth. Under this slight covering, in their wooden shelter,
exposed to all the winds of heaven, they are not endangered by the
severe frosts. I thought them susceptible to cold, but I find that they
bear the hardships of the winter remarkably well. They have retained
the robust constitution of the larvæ, which I used to find, to my
astonishment, lying stiff and stark in a block of frozen snow, yet
returning to life when carefully thawed.
March is not over before signs of life reappear. My buried Beetles
emerge, climb up the wire trellis, wandering about if the sun is kind,
going back into the sand if the air grows colder. What am I to give
them? There is no fruit. I serve them some honey in a paper dish. They
go to it without any marked assiduity. Let us find something more to
their taste. I offer them some dates. The exotic fruit, a delicious
pulp in a thin skin, suits them very well, despite its novelty: they
could set no greater store by pears or figs. The dates bring us to the
end of April, the time of the first cherries.
We have now returned to the regulation diet, the fruits of the country.
A very moderate consumption takes place: the hour is past for feats of
gastric prowess. Very soon my boarders grow indifferent to food. I
surprise them in nuptial embraces, a sign that egg-laying is near at
hand. In anticipation of events, I have placed in the cage, level with
the soil, a pot full of dead, half-rotten leaves. About the summer
solstice I see them enter it, one by one, remaining in it for some
little time. Then, having finished their business, they return to the
surface. For a week or two longer, they wander about, finally hiding
themselves in the sand, at no great depth, and dying.
Their successors are in the pot of rotten leaves. Before the end of
June I find, in the tepid mass, plenty of recent eggs and very young
larvæ. I now have the explanation of a peculiarity which caused me some
confusion at the time of my earlier studies. When rummaging through the
big heap of leaf-mould which, in a shady corner of the garden, provides
me yearly with a rich colony of Cetoniæ, I used to find, under my
trowel, in July and August, intact cocoons which would soon split open
under the thrust of the insect inside; I also found the adult Cetonia,
who had emerged from her strong-box that very day, and quite close to
these I would find very young larvæ, which had only just made their
appearance. I had before my eyes the crazy paradox of children born
before their parents.
The breeding-cage has cleared up these obscure points completely. It
has taught me that the Cetonia, in the adult form, lives through a
whole year and the summer of the following year. The cocoon is broken
during the summer heats of July and August. The regular thing would be,
provided the season were propitious, to think at once of the family,
after indulging in a few nuptial frolics. This is the general rule
among other insects. For them the present form is an efflorescence of
brief duration, which the needs of the future employ as quickly as may.
The Cetonia does not display this haste. She was a gross eater in her
days of pot-bellied grubhood; she remains a gross eater beneath the
splendour of her adult cuirass. She spends her life, so long as the
heat is not too overwhelming, in the jam-factory of the orchard:
apricots, pears, peaches, figs and plums. Lingering over her meal, she
forgets all else and defers her egg-laying to the following year.
After the torpor of hibernation in some place of shelter, she reappears
with the first days of spring. But there is no fruit now; and last
year’s glutton, who, for that matter, has become a frugal eater,
whether by necessity or by temperament, has no other resource than the
niggardly drinking-bar of the flowers. When June has come, she sows her
eggs in a heap of vegetable mould, beside the chrysalids whence the
adult insect will emerge a little later. This being so, unless we are
in the secret, we behold the mad spectacle of the egg preceding the
mother that lays it.
Among the Cetoniæ that make their appearance in the course of the same
year we must therefore distinguish two generations. Those of the
spring, the inhabitants of the roses, have lived through the winter.
They must lay their eggs in June and then die. Those of the autumn,
passionate fruit-lovers, have recently left their nymphal dwellings.
They will hibernate and will lay their eggs about the middle of the
following summer.
We have come to the longest days of the year; this is the moment. In
the shadow of the pines, against the wall of the enclosure, stands a
heap some cubic yards in volume, formed of all the rubbish of the
garden and particularly of dead leaves collected at the time of their
fall. This is the compost-factory which supplies the needs of my potted
plants. Now this bank of corruption, warmed by the slow decomposition
which is working in it, is a paradise for the Cetoniæ in their larval
state. The fat grub swarms there, finding abundant provender in the
shape of fermented vegetable matter and an agreeable warmth, even in
the heart of the winter.
Four species live here, thriving admirably, despite the annoyance which
my curiosity causes them. The most numerous is the Metallic Cetonia (C.
metallica, Fab.). This is the insect that provides me with the greater
part of my data. The others are the common Golden Cetonia, or
Rose-chafer (C. aurata, Linn.), the Dark-brown Cetonia (C. morio, Fab.)
and lastly the small Funeral-pall Cetonia (C. stictica, Linn.). [9]
Let us inspect the heap about nine or ten o’clock in the morning. We
must be diligent and patient, for the advent of the laying mothers is
subject to capricious delays and often makes us wait in vain. Chance
favours us. Here is a Metallic Cetonia dropping in from some
neighbouring spot. In wide circles she flies once or twice over the
heap; she inspects the lie of the land from above and selects a point
easy of access. Whoosh! She pounces upon it, digs with her head and
legs and forthwith makes her way in. Which way will she go?
At first the sense of hearing tells us of the direction followed: we
hear a rustling of withered leaves as long as the insect is working
through the dry outer layer. Then nothing but silence: the Cetonia has
reached the moist centre of the heap. Here and here only must the
laying take place, so that the grub emerging from the egg may find soft
food at hand without seeking for it. Let us leave the mother to her
task and return a couple of hours later.
But first let us reflect upon what has just occurred. A magnificent
insect, a living gem of goldsmith’s work, was slumbering just now at
the heart of a rose, on the satin of its petals, in the sweetness of
its scent. And now this voluptuary in her golden tunic, this sipper of
ambrosia, suddenly leaves her flower and buries herself in corruption;
she abandons the sumptuous hammock, fragrant of attar, to burrow in
nauseous filth. Whence this sudden depravity?
She knows that her grub will regale itself on what she herself abhors;
and overcoming her repugnance, not even giving it a thought, she takes
the plunge. Is she actuated by the memory of her larval days? But what
memory of food can she have after a year’s interval, above all after an
absolute remoulding of her organism? To draw the Cetonia hither, to
make her come from the rose to this putrid heap, there is something
better than the memory of the belly; there is a blind, irresistible
impulse, which acts in the most logical manner under cover of a seeming
insanity.
Let us now return to the heap of leaf-mould. The rustle of the withered
leaves has informed us approximately: we know in what direction to make
our search, a minute and hesitating search, for we have to follow the
mother’s trail. Nevertheless, guided by the materials thrust aside on
the insect’s passage, we reach our goal. The eggs are found, scattered
without order, always singly, with no preparatory measures. It is
enough that there should be close at hand soft vegetable matter,
suitably fermented.
The egg is an ivory globule, departing only slightly from the spherical
form and measuring nearly three millimetres [10] in diameter. The
hatching takes place twelve days later. The grub is white, bristling
with short, sparse hairs. When laid bare and removed from its
leaf-mould, it crawls upon its back, that is to say, it possesses the
curious method of locomotion characteristic of its race. With its
earliest wriggles it proclaims the art of walking on its back, with its
legs in the air.
Nothing is easier than to rear this grub. A thin box, which hinders
evaporation and keeps the provisions fresh, receives the nursling
together with a selection of fermented leaves, gathered from the heap
of mould. This is enough: my charge thrives and undergoes its
transformation in the following year, provided I take care to renew the
victuals from time to time. No entomological rearing gives less trouble
than that of the Cetonia-larva, with its robust appetite and its
vigorous constitution.
Its growth is rapid. At the beginning of August, four weeks after
hatching, the grub has reached half its final size. The idea occurs to
me to estimate its consumption of food by means of the stercoral
granules which collect in the box from the time of its first mouthful.
I find, 11,978 cubic millimetres; [11] that is to say, in one month the
grub has digested a volume of matter equivalent to several thousand
times its own initial bulk.
The Cetonia-grub is a mill that is always grinding dead vegetable
substances into meal; it is a crushing-machine of great efficiency,
which night and day, almost all the year round, shreds and powders the
matter which fermentation has already reduced to tatters. In the
rotting heap the fibres and veins of the leaves would remain intact
indefinitely. The grub takes possession of these refractory remnants;
with its excellent shears it tears and minces them very small; it
dissolves them, reducing them to a paste in the intestines, and adds
them, henceforth capable of being used, to the riches of the soil.
In the larval stage, the Cetonia is a most active manufacturer of
leaf-mould. When the metamorphosis occurs and I review the results of
my insect-rearing for the last time, I am shocked by the amount of
eating which my gormandizers have done in the course of their lives; it
can be measured by the bowlful.
The Cetonia-larva is worth attention from another point of view. It is
a corpulent grub, an inch long, with a convex back and a flat belly.
The dorsal surface is wrinkled with thick folds, on which the sparse
hairs stand erect like the bristles of a brush; the ventral surface is
smooth, covered with a fine skin, through which the ample wallet of
ordure shows as a brown patch. The legs are very well-shaped, but are
small, feeble and out of proportion to the rest of the body.
The creature is given to coiling itself into a closed ring. This is a
posture of repose, or rather of anxiety and defence. At such times the
living coil contracts so violently that we fear to see it burst open
and void its entrails when we seek to unroll it by force. When no
longer molested, the grub unrolls itself, straightens out and makes
haste to escape.
Then a surprise awaits us. If placed upon the table, the harassed
creature travels on its back with its legs in the air, inactive. This
extravagant method, contrary to the accepted usages of locomotion,
appears at first sight an accident, a chance manœuvre of the bewildered
animal. Not at all: it is a normal manœuvre; and the grub knows no
other. You turn it over on its belly, hoping to see it progress in the
customary fashion. Your attempts are useless: obstinately it lies down
on its back again, obstinately it crawls along in a reversed position.
Nothing will persuade it to walk on its legs. Either it will remain
motionless, coiled into a circle, or, straightening itself out, it will
travel upside down. This is its way of doing things.
Leave it undisturbed on the table. It sets off, longing to bury itself
in the soil and escape from its tormentor. Its progress is by no means
slow. The dorsal pads, actuated by a powerful layer of muscle, give it
a hold even on a smooth surface, thanks to their brush-like tufts of
hair. They are ambulacra which, by their multiplicity, exert a vigorous
traction.
The moving mechanism is apt to roll from side to side. By reason of the
rounded form of the back, the grub sometimes turns turtle. The accident
is not serious. With a heave of its loins, the capsized grub at once
recovers its balance and resumes its dorsal crawl, accompanied by a
gentle swaying to right and left. It also pitches to and fro. The prow
of the vessel, the larva’s head, rises and falls in measured
oscillations. The mandibles open and bite at space, apparently trying
to seize some support which is lacking.
Let us give it this support: not in the leaf-mould, whose opacity would
hide what I want to see, but in a transparent medium. I happen to have
what I need, a glass tube of some length, open at both ends and of a
gradually diminishing calibre. At the large end the grub enters
comfortably; at the other end it finds a very tight fit.
As long as the tube is more than wide enough, the grub moves along on
its back. Then it enters a part of the tube whose calibre is equal to
that of its body. From this moment the locomotion loses its abnormal
character. No matter what its position, whether the belly is uppermost,
undermost or to one side, the grub advances. I see the muscular waves
of the dorsal pads moving with a beautiful regularity, like the ripples
spreading over a calm sheet of water which has been disturbed by the
fall of a pebble. I see the bristles bowing and standing up again like
corn waving in the wind.
The head oscillates evenly. The tips of the mandibles are used as a
crutch which measures the paces in advance and gives stability by
obtaining a purchase of the walls. In all the positions, which I vary
at will by turning the tube between my fingers, the legs remain
inactive even when they touch the supporting surface. Their part in
locomotion is almost nil. What use, then, can they be? We shall see
presently.
The transparent channel in which the larva is worming its way tells us
what happens in the heart of the heap of garden-mould. Supported on
every side at once, close-sheathed in the substance traversed, the grub
progresses in the normal position as often as in the reversed position
and even oftener. By virtue of its dorsal waves, which come into
contact with the surrounding materials in every direction, it moves
back or belly uppermost, indifferently. Here are no longer fantastic
exceptions; matters return to their habitual order; if we could see the
grub ambling through the heap of rotting leaves, we should not regard
it as in any way peculiar.
But, when we expose it on the table, we perceive a glaring anomaly,
which disappears upon reflection. Support is lacking on every side save
from below. The dorsal pads, the principal ambulacra, take contact with
this one surface; and the animal straightway walks upside down. The
Cetonia-grub surprises us by the strangeness of its locomotion merely
because we are observing it outside its usual environment. It is thus
that the other corpulent, short-legged grubs would travel—the grubs of
the Cockchafer, the Oryctes [12] or the Anoxia-beetle—were it possible
to unroll them entirely and to straighten out the crook of their mighty
paunches.
In June, which is laying-season, the old larvæ that have lived through
the winter make their preparations for the transformation. The nymphal
caskets are contemporary with the ivory globules from which the new
generation will emerge. Although rudely made, the Cetonia-cocoons are
not without a certain elegance. They are ovoids almost the size of a
Pigeon’s egg. Those of the Funeral-pall Cetonia, the smallest of the
species inhabiting my heap of leaf-mould, are very much smaller, hardly
larger than a cherry.
All, however, have the same shape and the same appearance, so much so
that, with the exception of the small cocoons of the Funeral-pall
Cetonia, I cannot distinguish one from the other. Here the work tells
me nothing of the worker; I must wait until the adults come out to name
my discoveries correctly. However, as a general rule, subject to many
exceptions, the cocoons of the Golden Cetonia have an outside facing of
the insect’s droppings, set close together without any definite
arrangement. Those of the Metallic Cetonia and the Dark-brown Cetonia
are covered with remnants of decayed leaves.
We must regard these differences as resulting merely from the materials
that surround the grub at the moment when it is building its cocoon and
not from a special method of construction. It seems to me that the
Golden Cetonia likes building in the midst of its old dejecta, now hard
granules, while the other two prefer cleaner spots. Hence, no doubt,
the diversity of the outer layer.
In the case of the three larger Cetoniæ, the cocoons are free, that is
to say, they do not adhere to a fixed base; they are constructed
without a special foundation. The Funeral-pall Cetonia has other
methods. If it finds in the leaf-mould a little stone, no larger than a
finger-nail, it will by preference build its hut on this; but, if there
is no little stone, it can quite well dispense with it and build as the
others do, without any firm support.
The inside of the cocoon is smooth as stucco, as is required by the
delicate skin first of the grub, then of the nymph. The wall is tough,
resisting the pressure of the finger. It consists of a brown,
homogeneous material, of a nature which at first is difficult to
determine. It must have been a smooth paste which the grub worked in
its own fashion, even as the potter works his clay.
Does the ceramic art of the Cetonia likewise employ some sort of
fuller’s earth? So we should judge from the books, which agree in
regarding the cocoons of the Cockchafer, the Oryctes, the Cetonia and
other Beetles as earthy structures. The books, which are generally
compilations and not collections of facts directly observed, do not
inspire me with much confidence. In this instance my doubts are
increased, for the Cetonia-larva could not find the necessary clay
within a short radius, in the midst of the decayed leaves around it.
I myself, digging this way and that in the heap, should be greatly put
to it to collect enough plastic material to fill a thimble. What of the
grub, which no longer stirs from its place when the time has come to
shut itself up in a cocoon? It can gather only immediately around it.
And what does it find? Solely remains of leaves, humus, a bad mortar
that does not set. The conclusion is inevitable: the grub must have
other resources.
To divulge these resources will perhaps expose me to the foolish
accusation of unblushing realism. Certain ideas shock us though they
are quite straightforward and consistent with the sacred simplicity of
things. Nature has not our scruples: she makes direct for her goal,
heedless of our approval and our dislike. Let us silence a delicacy
which seems out of place: we must ourselves become animals to a certain
small extent, if we wish to understand the beautiful economy of animal
industry. Let us gloss over things as best we can, but let us not
shrink from the truth.
The Cetonia-larva is about to build itself a strong-box in which the
transformation, the most delicate of tasks, will be accomplished; it is
about to erect itself an enclosing wall, I might almost say, to spin
itself a cocoon. The caterpillar, to weave its cocoon withal, has
silk-tubes and a spinneret. The Cetonia-larva, which cannot make use of
outside things, has nothing at all, it would seem. But this is a
mistake. Its poverty is only apparent. Like the caterpillar, it has
secret reserves of building-materials; it has even a spinneret, but at
the other end of its body. Its store of cement is its intestine.
The grub was a mighty evacuator in its active period, as is proved by
the brown granules which it has scattered in profusion along its road.
As the transformation approached, it became more moderate; it began to
save up, amassing a hoard of paste of a most fine and binding quality.
Observe the tip of its belly as it withdraws from the world. You will
see a wide dark patch. This is the bag of cement showing through its
skin. This store, so well provided, tells us plainly in what the
artisan specializes: the Cetonia-larva works exclusively in fæcal
masonry.
If proofs were needed, here they are. I isolate some larvæ which have
attained their full maturity and are ready to build, in small jars,
placing one in each. As building needs a support, I provide each jar
with some slight contents, which can easily be removed. One receives
some cotton-wool, chopped small with the scissors; another some bits of
paper, the size of a lentil; a third some parsley-seed; a fourth some
radish-seed. I use whatever comes to hand, without preference for this
or that.
The larvæ do not hesitate to bury themselves in these surroundings,
which their race has never frequented. There is here no earthy matter,
such as we should expect to find used in the construction of the
cocoons; there is no clay to be collected. Everything is perfectly
clean. If the grub builds, it can only do so with mortar from its own
factory. But will it build?
To be sure it will and supremely well. In a few days’ time I have
magnificent cocoons, as strong as those that I extracted from the
leaf-mould. They are, moreover, much prettier in appearance. In the
flask containing cotton-wool, they are clad in a fluffy fleece; in that
containing bits of paper, they are covered with white tiles, as though
they had been snowed upon; in those containing radish or parsley-seed
they have the look of nutmegs embellished with an accurate milling.
This time the work is really beautiful. When human artifice assists the
talent of the stercoral artist, the result is a pretty toy.
The outer wrapper of paper scales, seeds or tufts of cotton-wool
adheres fairly well. Beneath it is the real wall, consisting entirely
of brown cement. The regularity of the shell gives us at first the idea
of an intentional arrangement. The same idea occurs to us if we
consider the cocoon of the Golden Cetonia, which is often prettily
adorned with a rubble of droppings. It looks as though the grub
collected from all around such building-stones as suit its purpose and
encrusted them piecemeal in the mortar to give greater strength to the
work.
But this is not so at all. There is no mosaic-work. With its round rump
the larva presses back the shifting material on every side; it adjusts
it, levels it by simple pressure and then fixes it, at one point after
another, by means of its mortar. Thus it obtains an egg-shaped cavity
which it reinforces at leisure with fresh layers of plaster, until its
excremental reserves are exhausted. Everything that is reached by the
trickling of the cement sets like concrete and henceforth forms part of
the wall, without any further intervention by the builder.
To follow the grub through the whole course of its labours is
impracticable: it works under a roof, protected from our indiscretion.
But we can at least surprise the essential secret of its method. I
select a cocoon whose softness indicates that the work is not yet
completed. I make a moderate hole in it. If it were too wide, the
breach would discourage the occupant and would make it impossible for
the grub to repair its shattered roof, not for lack of materials, but
for want of support.
Let us make a cautious incision with the point of a penknife and look.
The grub is rolled into a hook which is almost closed. Feeling uneasy,
it puts its head to the sky-light which I have opened and investigates
what has happened. The accident is soon perceived. Thereupon the hook
closes entirely, the opposite poles of the grub come into mutual
contact and then and there the builder is in possession of a pellet of
cement which the stercoral factory has that moment furnished. To
display such prompt obedience the intestine must certainly be
peculiarly obliging. That of the Cetonia-larva is very highly so;
directly it is called upon to act, it acts.
Now the true function of the legs is revealed. Of no use for walking,
they become precious auxiliaries when the time comes for building. They
are tiny hands that seize the piece gathered by the mandibles, turn it
over and over, and hold it while the mason subdivides it and applies it
economically. The pincers of the mandibles serve as a trowel.
They cut bit after bit from the lump, chewing and kneading the material
and then spreading it on the edge of the breach. The forehead presses
and smooths it as it is laid. When the supply of the moment is
exhausted, the grub, coiling itself again into a closed hook, will
obtain a further piece from its warehouse, which remains obedient to
its orders.
The little that the breach allows us to see—for it is pretty quickly
repaired—tells us what goes on under ordinary conditions. Without the
aid of sight, we see the grub evacuating at intervals and renewing its
store of cement; we can follow it as it gathers the clod with the tips
of its mandibles, squeezing it with its legs, dividing it to its liking
and spreading it with its mouth and forehead on the weak spots of the
wall. A rolling motion of the rump gives it a polish. Without borrowing
any extraneous materials, the builder finds within itself the
building-stones of its edifice.
A similar stercoral talent is the portion of other big-bellied larvæ,
which wear around their abdomen a wide brown sash, the insignia of
their craft. With the contents of their intestinal wallet they build
the hut in which metamorphosis takes place. All tells us of the high
economy which knows the secret of turning the abject into the decent
and of producing from a box of ordure the Golden Cetonia, the guest of
the roses and the glory of the spring.
CHAPTER II
SAPRINI, DERMESTES AND OTHERS
Twenty thousand, Réaumur [13] tells us, twenty thousand embryos in the
body of the Grey Flesh-fly! [14] Twenty thousand! What does she want
with this formidable family? With offspring that reproduce themselves
several times in a year, does she intend to dominate the world? She
would be capable of it. Speaking of the Bluebottle, [15] who is far
less prolific, Linnæus [16] already wrote:
“Three Flies consume the carcase of a Horse as quickly as a Lion could
do it.”
What could not the other accomplish?
Réaumur reassures us:
“Despite such amazing fertility,” he says, “these sorts of Flies are
not commoner than others which resemble them and in whose ovaries we
find only two eggs. The maggots of the former are seemingly destined to
feed other insects, which very few of them escape.”
Now which are the insects charged with this task of extirpation? The
master suspects their existence; he guesses that they are there,
without having had the occasion to observe them. My retting-vats
provide me with the means of filling up this historical gap; they show
me the consumers at their appointed task of thinning out the obtrusive
maggot. Let me record this tragic business.
A larger Adder is liquefying, thanks to the solvent dribbled by the
teeming vermin. The earthenware dish becomes a porringer full of
cadaveric fluid whence the reptile’s backbone emerges spiral-wise. The
scaly sheath swells up and throbs in gentle undulations, as though an
internal tide were lifting the skin with its ebb and flow. Gangs of
workers pass to and fro between skin and muscle, seeking a suitable
spot for their activities. A few of them show themselves for a moment
between the disjointed scales. Surprised by the light, they dart forth
their pointed heads and at once pop in again. Close beside them, in the
gaps between the spiral coils, the highly-flavoured broth lies in
stagnant channels. Here the greater part are feeding in shoals,
motionless, packed together, with their bud-shaped breathing-holes
expanded on the surface of the liquid. Their numbers are indefinite and
immense, defying computation.
Many strangers take part in the maggots’ banquet. The first to hasten
to it are the Saprini, lovers of corruption, as their name implies.
They arrive at the same time as the Luciliæ, [17] before the flesh
liquefies. They take up their positions, inspect the body, tease one
another in the sunshine, disappear under the corpse. The time has not
yet come for a good square meal. They wait.
Despite their habit of dwelling in fetid surroundings, the Saprini are
pretty insects. Well-armoured, thickset, moving by fits and starts with
short, quick steps, they glisten like beads of jet. On their shoulders
are chevron-like stripes which the classifier notes to mark where he
stands in the midst of this specific variety; they temper the
brilliance of their black wing-cases with stippled spaces which diffuse
the light. Some display polished, shimmering patches on a dull-bronze
background chased as though with the graver’s tool. Sometimes the
sombre ebony costume is embellished with brightly-coloured ornaments.
The Spotted Saprinus decorates each wing-case with a splendid orange
crescent. In short, considered merely from the æsthetic point of view,
these little undertakers’ assistants are by no means devoid of merit.
They cut an excellent figure in the glass cases of our collections.
But one should see them above all at work. The Snake is submerged in
the broth of its liquefied flesh. The maggots are legion. With their
diadem-like valves gently opening and closing, they lie, spread like a
field of flowers on the pool of meat-extract. The hour has come for the
Saprini to begin feasting.
Busily bustling to and fro on the parts that are still uncovered, they
scale the reefs and promontories formed by the reptile’s coils and from
these points, protected against the perilous flood, they fish for their
favourite titbit. Here is a grub near the bank, one not too large and
for that reason all the more tender. One of the gluttons sees it,
cautiously approaches the depths, snaps with his mandibles and pulls,
uprooting his prey. The plump little sausage emerges, wriggling. As
soon as it is on dry land, the victim is disembowelled and rapturously
crunched up. Not a scrap is left. The morsel is often shared, two
collaborators tugging in opposite directions, but without a scuffle.
Maggot-fishing is carried on in this way at every point of the shore.
The catch is not abundant, for most of the fry are some distance from
the mainland, in deep waters where the Saprini do not venture. They
never risk wetting their feet. However, the tide withdraws by degrees,
absorbed by the sand and evaporated by the sun. The grubs retreat under
the corpse; the Saprini follow them. The massacre becomes general. A
few days later, we remove the Snake. There are no maggots left. Nor are
there any in the sand, making ready for the metamorphosis. The horde
has disappeared: it has been eaten.
The extermination is so complete that, to obtain pupæ, I have to resort
to rearing them in private, guarding the larvæ against the invasion of
the Saprini. The earthenware pans in the open air, though thoroughly
searched, never yield me any, however numerous the maggots were at the
outset. During my earlier experiments, when as yet I had no suspicion
of the massacre, I could not get over my surprise when, after noting an
abundance of vermin under this or that piece of carrion a few days
before, I no longer found anything, even in the sand. I should have
concluded that the occupants had migrated in a body, had it been
permissible to imagine a maggot making a long journey through a
waterless world.
The Saprini, those lovers of fat sausages are entrusted with the task
of thinning out the Grey Fly, of whose twenty thousand offspring only a
few will survive, just enough to maintain the race within proper
limits. They flock about the dead Mole or Adder; but, kept at a
distance by the too liquid sanies and, for that matter, able to live on
a few frugal mouthfuls, they wait until the maggots’ work is finished.
Then, the liquefaction of the corpse completed, they slaughter the
liquidators. To purge the soil swiftly of life’s offal, the scavenging
maggot multiplies its legions; then, having itself become a peril by
reason of its numbers, it disappears, exterminated, when its cleansing
task is done.
In my district, I obtain nine species of Saprini, some found under
carrion, others under dung. I give their names in a footnote. [18] The
first four species hasten to my earthenware pans, but the most numerous
and most assiduous, those on whom the bulk of the work falls, are S.
subnitidus and S. detersus. They arrive as early as April, at the same
time as the Luciliæ, whose offspring they ravage with the same zeal as
that of the Grey Fly. Both of them abound in my charnel-pits until the
torrid sun of the dog-days puts an end to the invasion of the Flies by
drying up the exposed carrion too quickly. They reappear in September,
with the first cool breezes of autumn.
Flesh or fish, fur, feather or reptile, everything suits them because
it also attracts the maggot, their favourite meat. While waiting for
the vermin to grow, they take a few sips of the sanies; but these are
scarcely more than an appetizer in preparation for the great feast,
when the wriggling grubs are fattened to a turn.
Seeing them so active, one at first pictures them as occupied with
family-cares. So I believed; and I was wrong. Under the carrion in my
necrotic laboratory, there is never an egg belonging to them, never a
larva. The family must be established elsewhere, in the dung-hills and
dust-heaps apparently. I have, in fact, found their nymphs, which are
easily recognized, in March, on the floor of a poultry-run saturated
with the droppings of the fowls. The adults visit my retting-pans to
feast upon the maggot. When their mission is accomplished, in the late
autumn, they seem to return to the filth under whose shelter the
generation is prepared which, as soon as winter is over, hastens to the
dead bodies of animals to moderate the excesses of the Sarcophagæ [19]
and the Luciliæ.
The labours of the Fly do not satisfy the requirements of hygiene. When
the soil has drunk the cadaveric extract elaborated by the grubs, a
great deal remains that cannot be liquefied or dried up by the heat.
Other workers are needed, who treat the mummified carcase anew,
nibbling at the shrivelled muscles and tendons until the relics are
reduced to a heap of bones as clean as ivory.
The Dermestes are charged with this long labour of gnawing. Two species
come to my earthenware pans at the same time as the Saprini: D.
undulatus, Brahm., and D. Frischii, Kugel. The first, striped with
fine, snow-white, wavy lines on a black ground, has a red corselet
speckled with brown spots; the second, the larger of the two, is dull
black all over, with the sides of the corselet powdered ashen grey.
Both wear white flannel underneath, which forms a violent contrast with
the rest of the costume and seems inconsistent with the insect’s
calling.
The Necrophorus, [20] the burier of the dead, has already shown us this
propensity for soft stuffs and the clash of discordant colours. He
covers his breast with a waistcoat of nankeen flannel, decorates his
wing-cases with red stripes and sports an orange club at the tip of his
antennæ. The Wavy Dermestes, wearing a leopard-skin cape and a jerkin
striped with ermine, could almost, humble though he be, rival the
elegance of this mighty undertaker.
Both of them numerous, the two Dermestes come to my earthenware
receptacles with a common aim; to dissect the dead body to the bone and
to feed on what the maggots have left. If the work of these is not
completed, if the lower surface of the corpse is still oozing, they
wait, gathered on the edges of the pan or clinging in long rows to the
cords by which it is slung. In their tumultuous impatience, falls are
frequent, which throw the clumsy insect on its back and for a moment
reveal the white flannel of the belly. The thoughtless Beetle soon
recovers his feet, runs away and once more climbs the strings. In the
kindly sunshine, frequent pairings occur, which is another way of
killing time. There are no fights for the best places and the best
morsels. The banquet is plentiful; there is room for all.
At last the victuals are in the requisite condition; the maggots have
disappeared, carried off by the Saprini; these last are themselves
becoming scarce and are repairing elsewhither in search of another
hoard of vermin. The Dermestes take possession of the corpse and remain
indefinitely, even during the cruel dog-days, when the excessive heat
and drought have put all else to flight. Under cover of the dried-up
carcase, in the shadow of the Mole’s fur, which makes an impenetrable
screen, they nibble and gnaw and clip as long as a scrap of edible
matter remains on the bones.
And the work of consuming goes fast, for one of the Beetles, Frisch’s
Dermestes, is surrounded by her family, who are endowed with the same
appetites. Parents and larval offspring of all ages feast
higgledy-piggledy, insatiably. As for the Wavy Dermestes, the other’s
collaborator in the dissection of corpses, I do not know where she lays
her eggs. My pans have taught me nothing in this respect. As against
that, they tell me a great deal about the larva of the other Dermestes.
All through the spring and the greater part of the summer the adult
abounds beneath my carcases, accompanied by the youngsters, ugly
creatures covered with wild bristle of dark hairs. The pitch-black back
has a red stripe running down the middle from end to end. The
white-leaded lower surface already promises the white flannel of
maturity. The penultimate segment is armed, above, with two curved
points. These are grapnels, which enable the grub to slip swiftly
through the interstices of the bones.
The exploited carcase seems deserted, so quiet is everything outside.
Lift it up. Instantly what liveliness, what confusion! Surprised by the
sudden rush of light, the hairy-backed larvæ dive under the remains,
wriggling their way into the crevices of the skeleton; the adults,
whose movements are less supple, run to and fro in their distress,
burying themselves as best they can, or flying off. Leave them to their
darkness: they will resume the interrupted work and, some time in July,
we shall find their nymphs with no other shelter than the remnants of
the corpse.
Although the Dermestes disdains to burrow underground in order to
undergo their transformation, finding sufficient protection beneath the
remains of the wasted corpse, this is by no means the case with the
Silpha, another exploiter of the dead. Two species visit my pans: S.
rugosa, Linn., and S. sinuata, Fab. Although assiduously frequented by
both species, my appliances tell me nothing definite about the history
of these two habitual associates of the Dermestes and the Saprinus.
Perhaps I took up the matter too late.
At the end of the winter, indeed, I find beneath a toad the family of
the Wrinkled Silpha. It consists of some thirty naked larvæ, glossy,
black, flat and tapering to a point. The abdominal segments end on
either side in a spike aimed backwards. The penultimate segment has
short, bristling filaments. Hidden in the shadow of the disembowelled
toad, these larvæ are nibbling the dry meat, long toasted in the sun.
About the first week in May, they repair underground, where each of
them digs itself a spherical recess. The nymphs are continually on the
alert. At the slightest disturbance, they twirl their pointed abdomen,
brandishing it to and fro with a rapid whirling motion. At the end of
the same month, the adults leave the soil. Equally precocious, it would
seem, are the insects that come to my pans, to eat their fill but not
to reproduce their species. Family cares are postponed to a later
season, to the end of autumn.
I shall mention but briefly the Necrophorus (N. vestigator, Herch.),
whose feats I have described elsewhere. [21] He comes to my apparatus,
of course, but without making a long stay, the carcases being as a rule
too large for his burying-methods. For that matter, I myself would
thwart his enterprises if it did suit him. I want to see not burials
but operations in the open air. If the sexton is persistent, I dissuade
him by pestering him.
Let us pass on to others. Who is this, assiduous visitor, but appearing
only in small parties, hardly more than four or five at a time? It is
an Hemipteron, [22] a slender Bug, with red wings and with stout,
toothed thighs to its hind-legs; it is the Spurred Alydus (A.
calcaratus, Linn.), a near kinswoman of the Reduvius, so interesting
because of her explosive egg. [23] She too has an appetite for game,
but how moderate compared with the other’s! I see her wandering over my
specimens in search of a denuded bone bleached by the sun. After
finding a suitable point she applies the tip of her rostrum to it and
for some time remains motionless.
With her rigid implement, fine as a horse-hair, what can she extract
from that bone? I ask myself in vain, so dry does the surface exploited
appear to be. Perhaps she collects the vestiges of grease left by the
Dermestes’ conscientious tooth. Quite a secondary worker, she gleans
where others have reaped. I should have liked to follow this
bone-sucker’s habits more closely and above all to obtain her eggs, in
the hope of discovering some little mechanical secret at the moment of
hatching. My attempts failed. When imprisoned in a glass jar with the
victuals which she requires, the Alydus allows herself to pine away
from one day to the next. She needs to fly in freedom over the
neighbouring rosemary-bushes, after her sojourn in the retting-vats.
We will close this list of undertakers’ assistants with the Staphylini,
[24] the tribe with the short wing-cases. Two species, both inmates of
dung-hills, haunt my earthenware pans: Aleochara fuscipes, Fab., and
Staphylinus maxillosus, Linn. My attention is drawn rather to the
latter, the family giantess.
Barred with ash-grey velvet on a black ground, the Big-jawed
Staphylinus reaches me only in small numbers, always one by one. She
flies up hastily, perhaps from the stables hard by. She alights, coils
her belly, opens her pincers and dives impetuously into the Mole’s fur.
Then, with her powerful nippers, she punctures the skin, now blue and
distended by gases. The sanies oozes out. The glutton greedily eats her
fill; and that is all. Soon she departs, as suddenly as she came.
I have not had the good fortune to see anything further. The big
Staphylinus hastens to my pans only to feast upon a highly seasoned
dish. Her family dwelling must be in the dung-hills about the stables
of the neighbourhood. I should have much liked to see her make her home
in my charnel-pits.
The Staphylinus is a curious creature indeed. Her short wing-cases,
covering just the top of her shoulders, her fierce mandibles,
overlapping like a meat-hook, and her long, naked abdomen, which she
lifts and brandishes in the air, make her a being apart, of alarming
aspect. I should like to learn something of her larva. As I cannot do
this with the Beetle that visits my Moles, I apply myself to a kindred
species, as nearly as possible her equivalent in respect of size.
In winter, when I raise the stones beside the foot-paths, I often come
across the larva of the Stinking Staphylinus (S. olens, Müll.), or
Devil’s Coach-horse. The ugly animal, which is not very different in
shape from the adult, measures about an inch in length. The head and
thorax are a fine, glossy black; the abdomen is brown and bristles with
sparse hairs. The cranium is flat; the mandibles are black and very
sharp, opening in a ferocious crescent whose width is more than twice
the diameter of the head. The mere sight of these curved daggers
enables us to guess the highwayman’s habits.
The creature’s most singular implement is the end of the intestine,
which is covered with a horny substance prolonged into a stiff tube
standing at right angles to the axis of the body. This member is an
instrument of locomotion, an anal crutch. In walking, the animal
presses the tip of this crutch to the ground and thrusts backwards as
with a lever, while the legs struggle forward. Doré, [25] the famous
illustrator of extravagant notions, conceived a similar system. He
shows us somewhere a legless cripple seated in a bowl supported by a
pivot and working himself along on his hands. The artist’s grotesque
imagination might well have been inspired by the grotesque appearance
of the insect.
Even among its own kind, the crutched insect is a bad neighbour. Very
rarely do I find two larvæ under the same stone; and, when this
happens, one of the two is always in a pitiful state: the other is
devouring it as if it were its ordinary game. Let us watch this
conflict of two cannibals, each thirsting for the other’s blood.
In the arena furnished by a tumbler containing some moist sand, I place
two larvæ of equal strength. The moment they face each other, they
suddenly rear up, bending their bodies backwards, with the six legs in
the air, hooks of the mandibles wide open and the anal crutch firmly
fixed. They look magnificently audacious in this posture of attack and
defence. This above all is the best moment for recognizing the great
advantage of the pivot at the tail. Though in danger of being
disembowelled by its adversary, the larva has no other support than the
tip of the abdomen and the terminal tube. The six legs play no part in
sustaining it; they wave in the air, all six free and ready to clasp
the enemy.
The two adversaries are standing face to face. Which of the two will
eat the other? Chance decides. Mutual threats are followed by a
hand-to-hand struggle. The fight does not last long. Favoured by the
hazards of the fray, or perhaps timing its blows more accurately, one
seizes the other by the scruff of the neck. It is done: any resistance
on the part of the vanquished is impossible; blood flows and murder has
been committed. When all movement has ceased, the victor devours the
slain, leaving only the unpleasantly hard skin.
Is this frenzy for killing among creatures of the same species due to
cannibalism enforced by starvation? I really do not think so. When
well-fed to begin with, rich, moreover, in the victuals which I lavish
upon them, these miscreants are as prone as ever to butcher their kith
and kin. In vain I overwhelm them with choice morsels: succulent
sausages in the shape of young Anoxia-larvæ; [26] Vitrinæ, [27] tiny
molluscs which I give them half-crushed, to spare the banqueters the
trouble of extracting them from the shell. As soon as they are
confronted, the two bandits, which have just been feasting on a prey as
bulky as themselves, stand up, challenging each other and snapping at
each other until one of the two is dead. Then follows the odious meal.
To eat the murdered kinsman is, it seems, the usual thing.
The Mantis [28] who, in captivity, preys upon her mates has the madness
of the rutting beast as her excuse. The fierce, jealous creature can
find no better way of getting rid of her rivals than to eat them,
provided she be the stronger. This procreative depravity is found much
higher in the scale. The Cat and the Rabbit notably are prone to devour
the young family which might stand in the way of their unslaked
passions.
In my glass jars and under the flat stones in the fields the Devil’s
Coach-horse has no such excuse. Thanks to its larval state, it is
utterly indifferent to the disorders attendant on the pairing. Those of
its fellows which it encounters are not its amorous rivals. And yet
without more ado they seize and slay one another. A fight to the death
decides which is to be the consumed and which the consumer.
In our language we have the word anthropophagi to denote the horrible
eating of man by man; we have nothing to express a similar act in
animals of the same species. A proverbial phrase would even seem to say
that such a term is uncalled for, except where man is concerned, that
baffling admixture of nobility and baseness. Wolf does not eat Wolf,
says the wisdom of the nations. Well, here we have the larva of the
Stinking Staphylinus giving the lie to the proverb.
What a morality. In this connection, I should have wished to consult
the Big-jawed Staphylinus when she came to visit my highly-seasoned
Moles, my putrefying Snakes. But she always refused to divulge her
secrets, withdrawing from the charnel-pit once she had filled her maw.
CHAPTER III
THE BEADED TROX
The Fly has deserved well of hygiene. The first to come to the dead
Mole, she left behind her a garrison of scavengers which, without
dissecting-instruments, whether lancets or scalpels, set to work upon
the corpse. The most urgent matter was to sterilize the carcase, to
extract from it such substances as are readily corrupted, the source of
rapid and dangerous putrescence. And this is what the maggot has been
doing. From its pointed mouth, for ever poking and rummaging, it
dribbled forth a solvent as effective as any in my laboratory; with
this reagent it dissolved the flesh and viscera, or at least reduced
them to a thick liquid broth. Gradually the soil is saturated with the
fertilizing moisture, which the plant will soon restore to the
laboratory of living chemistry.
When her mission is completed, the Fly herself becomes a danger,
because of her excessive numbers. In order to perform their pressing
task more quickly, the maggots operate in legions. If not checked, they
would encumber the world. The balance of things in general demands
their disappearance. Then, in due season, the exterminator arrives, the
Saprinus doting on fat sausages, the slow-trotting Beetle in black
armour who massacres the vermin and leaves only enough survivors to
maintain the race.
The Mole is now a dried-up mummy, but is harmful if affected by
moisture. This remnant also has to disappear. The Dermestes is
entrusted with the task. She establishes herself beneath the remains in
company with the Silpha, her collaborator. With her patient tooth she
files, rasps and disarticulates as long as a scrap of cartilage is left
to gnaw. She is greatly assisted by her starveling larvæ, who are
lither in the back and therefore able to slip into narrow crevices.
By the time the Dermestes has finished, my pans contain so many heaps
of bones, a conglomeration of Snakes’ vertebræ arranged in a row,
Moles’ jaws, with their fine, insectivorous teeth, Frogs’
toe-and-finger-joints, radiating like knotty sticks, Rabbits’ skulls
overlapping their powerful incisors, all white and clean enough to
arouse the envy of the people who prepare our anatomical specimens.
Yes, working one on the soft parts and then the other on the hard, the
maggot and the Dermestes have performed a meritorious task. There is no
longer any pestilential filth, any dangerous effluvia. The residue,
mostly of a chalky nature, if it still offends the eye, is at least
capable of vitiating the air, the first aliment of life. General
hygiene is satisfied.
Besides his bones, the Mole has left the tatters of his fur; the Snake
has been flayed in tatters like the skin which boiling water strips
from a fleshy root. The Fly’s solvent was powerless to affect these
refractory substances; the Dermestes refused them. Will these epidermic
shreds remain unutilized? Certainly not. Nature, the sublime economist,
takes good care that all things return to the treasury of her works.
Not an atom must be allowed to go astray.
Others will come, frugal and patient pickers-up of unconsidered
trifles, and will garner the Mole’s fur, hair by hair, to cover
themselves, to clothe themselves with it; there will be some, we may be
sure, that will feast upon the Snake’s cast scales. These are the
Tineæ, the humble caterpillars of no less humble Moths.
Everything suits them in the way of animal clothing: bristles, hair,
scales, horn, fur, feather; but for their labours they need darkness
and repose. In the sunshine and bustle of the open air they refuse the
relics in my pans; they wait until a gust of wind sweeps the
charnel-pits and carries the Mole’s velvety down or the reptile’s
parchment into a shady corner. Then, infallibly, the cast-off garments
of the dead will disappear. As for the bones, the atmospheric agencies,
having plenty of time, will crumble and disintegrate them in good time.
If I wish to hasten the end of the epidermic remains disdained by the
Dermestes, I have only to keep them in a dry place, in the dark. Before
long the Moth will come to exploit them. They infest my house. I had
received the skin of a Rattlesnake from Guiana. The horrible specimen,
rolled into a bundle, reached me intact, with its poison-fangs, the
mere sight of which makes one shudder, and its alarm of rattling rings.
In the Carib country it had been steeped in a poison which should have
ensured its preservation for an indefinite length of time. A useless
precaution: the Moths have invaded the thing; they are gnawing at the
Rattlesnake’s skin and find the unusual dish, here eaten for the first
time, excellent. More familiar victuals, such as the skin of our native
Snake, tanned by the maggots and the sun, would be exploited with even
greater enthusiasm.
And any relics of what has once lived are visited by specialists who
come hurrying up to work upon dead matter and restore it to circulation
under new forms. Among them are some whose peculiar specialty shows us
with what scrupulous economy the waste material of life is utilized.
Such is the Beaded Trox (T. perlatus, Scriba), a humble Beetle, no
larger than a cherry-stone at most, black all over and decorated on the
wing-cases with rows of protuberances which have earned it the epithet
of beaded.
Not to know the Trox is quite excusable, for the insect has never been
much talked about. It is an obscure creature, overlooked by the
historian. When impaled in a collector’s box, it ranks close to the
Dung-Beetles, just after the Geotrupes. [29] Its mean and earthy attire
denotes a digger. But what precisely is its calling? Like many others,
I did not know, when an accidental discovery enlightened me and taught
me that the beaded insect deserves something better than a mere
compartment in the collector’s necropolis.
February was drawing to a close. The weather was mild and the sun warm.
We had gone off in a family party, with the children’s lunch, an apple
and a chunk of bread, in the basket, to see the almond trees in bloom.
When lunch-time came, we were resting under some great oaks, when Anna,
the youngest of the household, always on the watch for “beasties” with
her six-year-old eyes, called to me from a distance of a few yards:
“A beastie!” she cried. “Two, three, four of them! And such pretty
ones! Come and look, papa, come and look!”
I ran up to her. The child had dug into the sand, to no great depth,
with a bit of stick, and was breaking up a sort of rag of fur. I
produced my pocket trowel and joined her in the task; and in a moment I
possessed a dozen Trox-beetles, most of whom I found in a filthy tangle
of fur and broken bones. They were working away at it and apparently
feeding on it. I had disturbed them at their banquet.
What could this mess be? That was the fundamental question to be
solved. Brillat-Savarin [30] declared as an axiom:
“Tell me what you eat and I will tell you what you are.”
If I wish to know the Trox, I must first enquire what she eats. Reader,
pity the sorrows of the naturalist! Behold me scrutinizing, meditating,
conjecturing, my mind set in a whirl by an unspeakable problem, a
stercoral problem.
Whom am I to hold responsible for this fibrous lump, in which I seem to
distinguish Rabbit’s fur as the chief ingredient? The probabilities
point to the dog. Rabbits abound on the Sérignan hills; they even enjoy
a certain reputation among our epicures. The village sportsmen hunt
them assiduously; and their Dogs, those poachers heedless of licences
and of the police, do not fail to harry them on their own account, at
all seasons, close or open.
Two of them are known to me by report: Mirate and Flambard. They meet
by appointment of a morning in the market-place, exchange an
inquisitive glance, inspect each other with the three regulation turns,
lift a leg against the wall ... and off they go! For the best part of
the morning you can hear them on the neighbouring hill-sides, giving
vent to short, sharp yelps, close on the heels of a Rabbit who scampers
from thicket to thicket, with his little white scut in the air. At last
they return home: the result of the expedition may be read on their
bloody chaps: the Rabbit was eaten on the spot, just as it was, skin
and all.
Does this really explain the substance on which my Trox-beetles were
living? It seems to me that it does. Henceforth it would appear an easy
matter to rear them. I install the insects in a large earthenware pan
with a bed of sand and a wire-gauze cover. The provisions consist of
Dog-droppings, dried on the road-mender’s stone-heaps beside the
highway. My menagerie absolutely refuse to look at them. I have made a
mistake. Then what does it want?
It is under hairy ordure that I find the insect, always there and never
any elsewhere. Rarely does a lump of this rough felt fail to conceal a
few of them. Under their tight-fitting wing-cases, they have only quite
rudimentary wings, unsuited to flight. These short-legged creatures
hasten to the titbit and gather about it on foot. They come from afar,
from all points of the compass, guided by the scent. Once more, what is
the origin of this felt, which has a strong enough stench in the fresh
state to attract its consumers from such a distance?
At last I have my answer. Investigations patiently pursued on the
slopes of the hills, above all near the farms, furnish me with a
decisive piece of evidence. This is a mass of filth, full of fur and
Trox-beetles, like the others, but this time a regular nugget, all
glittering with wing-cases of the Golden Carabus. [31] Eureka! Never
did Dog, even though starving, feed on Beetles, least of all on acrid
Carabi. Only the Fox, in time of dearth, accepts such food, in the
absence of anything better. Later on he makes up for it with Rabbits,
slaughtering them by night, when his rivals, Mirate and Flambard, are
resting from their labours.
The fur from which the Fox’s stomach can derive no benefit has its
votaries. In the natural state, as it grows on the skins which provide
the hat-maker with felt, it suits the Moth; unsuccessfully worked by
the carnivore’s intestine and seasoned with fæcal matter, it delights
the Beaded Trox. There are all sorts of tastes in this world, so that
nothing may be lost. The menagerie under the wire-gauze dome, when
supplied with the requisite diet of Rabbit’s fur pickled by an attempt
at digestion, fares very well.
Moreover, the food is collected without difficulty. The Fox is only too
common in my neighbourhood. I can easily find his furry excreta on the
tangled paths which he frequents at night when going his round of the
farms. My Trox-beetles have plenty to eat.
Not endowed with a nomadic temperament and abundantly provided for,
they seem very well satisfied with the arrangements made on their
behalf. By day, they remain on the heap of victuals; feeding at
leisure, without moving. If I approach the wire-gauze cover, they
instantly drop down; then, recovering from their excitement, they hide
under the heap. There is nothing striking in the habits of these
pacific creatures, unless it be the pairing, which drags on for two
months, frequently broken off, frequently resumed, often a passing
fancy. It is never finished.
At the end of April I proceed to search under the heap of provisions.
The eggs are distributed very near the surface in the moist sand,
singly, without cells or any preparation by the mother. They are white
and globular, about the size of small birdshot. I find that they are
very bulky in comparison with the size of the insect. Their number is
not great. Ten at most is the allowance for one mother, as far as I can
judge.
The larvæ soon appear and develop rather quickly. They are naked,
cylindrical grubs, dull white, curved into a hook like the
Dung-beetles’, but without the knapsack in which the latter reserve the
cement for plastering the interior of the emptied loaf and preserving
the victuals from desiccation. The head is powerful and glossy black;
there is a brown streak on either side of the first thoracic segment;
the legs and mandibles are strongly made.
Classed close beside the Dung-eaters, the Trox-beetles form a genus of
boorish habits, far removed from the domestic fondness of the
Scarabæus, the Copris [32] and the others. With them there are no
longer provisions stored away beforehand, no rations kneaded for the
larva’s benefit. The least industrious of the Dung-beetles, the
Onthophagi, [33] for example, pack into the bottom of a pit a short
sausage, selected from the best part of the exploited heap; in the dish
thus provided they contrive a hatching-chamber, in which the egg is
daintily lodged. Thanks to the mother’s care, often, also, to the
father’s, the new-born grub finds itself provided with all it could
wish. It is a privileged creature, spared the asperities of life.
The Trox, on the other hand, has a harsh and pitiless training. The
grub has to find board and lodging at its own cost and peril, a serious
question even for a consumer of Fox-dung. The mother scatters her eggs
under the furry ordure. Her foresight in the interest of her young goes
no further. The cake that nourishes her will feed her family likewise.
It is large and will be enough for all.
In order to follow the first actions of the grubs, I set apart a few
eggs, singly, in a glass tube. At the bottom is a column of moist sand;
above this is a store of food taken from that part of the Vulpine
excrement which is richest in Rabbit’s fur. Hatched by day, the grub at
first attends to its lodging. It digs, hollowing itself a retreat in
the sand, a short, vertical shaft into which a few scraps of the
fostering felt are dragged afterwards. As and when the provisions are
consumed, the grub returns to the surface to collect more.
The manœuvres of the grubs in the chief establishment, the earthenware
pan with the wire-gauze cover, begin and are continued in the same
fashion. Under cover of the heap exploited in common, the larvæ have
dug themselves a vertical shaft apiece, the length of a man’s finger
and the diameter of a thick pencil. At the bottom of the dwelling there
is no mass of victuals stored up in advance, such as the abundance on
the surface would permit. Instead of hoarding, the Trox-larvæ live from
day to day, I surprise them, above all in the evening, discreetly
climbing to the top, scraping the heap above their pit, collecting a
shaggy armful and immediately climbing down again tail foremost. They
do not reappear so long as the little bale of fur holds out. When their
provisions are finished and their appetite returns, they make a fresh
ascent and a fresh collection.
This frequent coming and going in the shaft threatens sooner or later
to bring down the sandy wall. Here we see renewed the industry of the
Geotrupes couples, who have a way of plastering the wall of their pit
with dung in order to avoid its collapsing while the material of the
huge sausage is being amassed on repeated journeys; only, with the
Trox, it is the larva itself that undertakes the work of consolidation.
From end to end it lines its gallery with the same felt on which it
feeds.
In three or four weeks’ time, all the hairy materials of the heap have
disappeared underground, dragged by the larvæ to the bottom of their
burrows. On the surface of the soil nothing is left except the remains
of the bones. The adults have gone to earth and are dead or dying.
Their time is over. I obtain the first nymphs at midsummer. A glass
receptacle shows them to me slowly turning round and round and
polishing with their backs the earthy wall of their cell, a simple,
oval cavity.
By the middle of July the perfect insect has matured. Not yet defiled
by the dirt of its calling, it is really magnificent in its ebony
cuirass, its strings of large beads surmounted by white hairs, its
hinder and middle tarsi shod with bright red. It comes up to the
surface, finds the Fox’s dejecta, settles down and from now onward is a
filthy scavenger. Once torpid in the sand, under the heap of ordure
which serves it as a roof, it will pass the winter there and resume its
labours in the spring.
When all is said, the Trox is a somewhat uninteresting insect. One
single point in her history deserves to be remembered, namely, her
predilection for what the Fox’s stomach has refused. I know another
instance of these peculiar tastes. The Owl, when he has caught a
Field-mouse, stuns her with a blow of his beak on the back of the neck
and swallows her whole. It is for the digestive pouch to bone and skin
her and sift the bad from the good. When the selection is made—as it
is, most admirably—the bird, with a shrug of its body, gets rid of the
indigestible stuff; it vomits a pellet of bones and fur. Now, just like
the furry mass evacuated by the Fox, these balls of filth have their
votaries. I have just seen one of them at work. This is the Choleva
tristis, Panz., a dwarf related to the family of the Silphæ.
Is the fur of a Rabbit or a Field-mouse such a very precious thing,
then, that it has special exploiters appointed to work at it again
after the Fox’s intestine and the Owl’s crop have been unable to break
it up and use it? Yes, this fur has a certain value. Nature’s treasury
claims it for fresh purposes with such an imperious voice that our own
industries, which in their fashion are endowed with a terrific power,
of digestion, cannot guarantee us the protracted possession of what was
a scrap of fluff.
Cloth comes from the Sheep. It has been worked up by the teeth of
machinery at the spinner’s and the weaver’s; it has been steeped in
chemicals at the dyer’s; it has passed through worse ordeals than an
attempt to digest it. Is it now safe from attack? No: the Moth vie with
us for its possession.
Poor swallow-tail coat of mine, of supple broadcloth, companion of my
drudgery [34] and witness of my poverty, I abandon you without regret
for the peasant’s jacket; you are reposing in a drawer, with a few bags
of camphorated lavender; the housewife keeps an eye on you and shakes
you from time to time. Useless pains! You will perish by the
Clothes-moths, as the Mole perished by the maggot, the Snake by the
Dermestes and we ourselves by.... Let us not dig that last pit of all
before the hour has struck. Everything must return to the renovating
crucible into which death is continually pouring materials to ensure
the continual blossoming of life.
CHAPTER IV
MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: THE BURROW
To describe the insect which forms the subject of this chapter,
scientific nomenclature has combined two formidable names: that of the
Minotaur, Minos’ Bull fed on human flesh in the windings of the Cretan
labyrinth, and that of Typhon or Typhœus, one of the giants, sons of
Terra, who attempted to scale heaven. Thanks to the clue of thread
which he received from Minos’ daughter Ariadne, Theseus the Athenian
found the Minotaur, slew him, and came out safe and sound, after
delivering his country for ever from the dreadful tribute destined for
the monster’s food.
Typhœus, struck by a thunder-bolt on his piled-up mountains, was hurled
into the flanks of Etna. He is still there. His breath is the smoke of
the volcano. When he coughs, he spews forth streams of lava; when he
shifts his weight from shoulder to shoulder, he puts all Sicily in a
flutter: he shakes her with an earthquake.
It is not unpleasing to find an echo of these old fables in natural
history. Mythological names, so resonant and grateful to the ear, do
not entail any contradiction with reality, a defect not always avoided
by terms entirely built up of data derived from the lexicon. When,
moreover, vague analogies connect the fabulous with the historical,
then the happiest surnames and forenames are obtained. Minotaurus
Typhœus Lin. is an instance in point. It is the name given to a
fair-sized black Beetle, closely related to the earth-borers, the
Geotrupes. [35] This is a peaceable, inoffensive creature, but even
better provided with horns than Minos’ Bull. None among our
armour-loving insects wears so threatening a panoply. The male carries
on his corselet a bundle of three sharp spears, parallel and pointed
forwards. Imagine him the size of a Bull: Theseus himself, if he met
him in the fields, would not dare to face his terrible trident.
The Typhœus of the legend had the ambition to sack the home of the gods
by stacking one atop of the other a pile of mountains wrenched from
their base; the Typhœus of the naturalists does not climb: he descends;
he bores the soil to enormous depths. The first, with a heave of the
shoulder, set a province trembling; the second, with a thrust of his
back, makes his little mound quake as Etna quakes when he who lies
buried beneath her stirs.
Such is the insect which I propose to study to-day, penetrating as far
as may be into the secret sources of its actions. The few particulars
which I have already gained, during the long period of my acquaintance
with it, make me suspect habits worthy of a fuller record.
But what is the use of this record, what the use of all this minute
research? I well know that it will not bring about a fall in the price
of pepper, a rise in that of crates of rotten cabbages or other serious
events of this sort, which cause fleets to be manned and set people
face to face intent upon exterminating one another. The insect does not
aspire to so much glory. It confines itself to showing us life in all
the inexhaustible variety of its manifestations; it helps us to
decipher in some small measure the obscurest book of all, the book of
ourselves.
Insects are easy to obtain, by no means burdensome to feed and not
repulsive when subjected to a physical examination; and they lend
themselves far better than the higher animals to our curious
investigations. Besides, the others are our near kinsfolk and do but
repeat a somewhat monotonous theme, whereas insects, with their
unparalleled wealth of instincts, habits and structure, reveal a new
world to us, much as though we were conferring with the natives of
another planet. This is why I hold insects in such high esteem and
constantly renew my untiring relations with them.
Minotaurus Typhœus affects the open sandy places where the flocks of
Sheep, on their way to the pasture, scatter their trails of black
pellets, which constitute his daily food. In their absence, he also
accepts the tiny products of the Rabbit, which are easy to gather, for
the timid rodent, perhaps afraid of scattering broadcast the evidences
of his whereabouts, always goes to some accustomed spot surrounded by
tufts of thyme, to deposit his droppings.
These to the Minotaur represent victuals of inferior quality, utilized,
in the absence of anything better, for his own nourishment, but not
served to his family. He prefers those supplied by the flock. Were it a
matter of naming him according to his tastes, we should have to call
him the assiduous collector of Sheep-droppings. This pastoral
predilection did not escape the old observers, one of whom speaks of
him as the Sheep Scarab, Scarabæus ovinus.
The burrows, which may be recognized by the little mound that surmounts
them first become numerous in autumn, when the rains have at last come
to moisten the soil parched by the scorching heat of summer. Then the
young of this year emerge slowly from underground and for the first
time come out to enjoy the light; then, for a few weeks, they feast in
temporary marquees; and next they begin to hoard with a view to the
winter.
Let us inspect the dwelling: an easy task, for which a simple
pocket-trowel will suffice. The mansion occupied in the late autumn is
a shaft as wide as a man’s finger and about nine inches deep. There is
no special chamber, but a sunk pit, as perpendicular as the
inequalities of the soil will allow it to be. The owner, now of one
sex, now of the other, is at the bottom, always alone. The time to
settle down and establish a family not having yet arrived, each of them
lives like an anchorite and thinks only of his own welfare. Above the
hermit a vertical column of Sheep-droppings blocks the dwelling. There
is often enough to fill the palm of one’s hand.
How did the Minotaur acquire so much wealth? He amasses it easily,
being spared the worry of seeking it, for he is always careful to
install himself near a copious defecation. 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 gives
it its spherical form, that best adapted to transport. The Minotaur,
though also versed in the mechanics of rolling, has no occasion to make
these preparations: the Sheep saves him the trouble by modelling
fragments which are easily moved.
At last, satisfied with his harvest, the gleaner goes indoors. What
will he do with his treasure? Feed on it, that goes without saying,
until the cold and its consequent torpor stay the appetite. But eating
is not everything. In the winter, certain precautions become essential
in a retreat of only middling depth. When December draws nigh, already
we find a few mounds as large as those of spring. They correspond with
burrows running down three feet or more. In these deeply buried crypts
there is always a female who, sheltered from the rough weather outside,
is frugally nibbling at her scanty provender.
Dwellings like these, with an equable temperature, are still rare. The
majority, always occupied by a single inhabitant, whether male or
female, are barely nine inches deep. As a rule, they are padded with a
thick blanket, obtained from dry pellets, crumbled and reduced to
shreds. We may take it that this fibrous mass, which is eminently
fitted to retain the heat, has a good deal to do with the hermit’s
comfort in severe weather. In the late autumn, the Minotaur hoards so
that he may take refuge in a felt mattress when the cold really sets
in.
Couples addicted to nest-building in concert begin to meet in the early
days of March. The two sexes, hitherto isolated in burrows near the
surface, are now associated for a long time to come. Where does the
meeting take place, where is the agreement to collaborate concluded?
One fact, to begin with, attracts my attention. At the end of autumn,
as in winter, females abound as frequently as the males. When March
comes, I find hardly any, so much so that I despair of properly
stocking the cage in which I propose to observe the insects’ habits. To
fifteen males I unearth three females at most. What has become of the
latter, so numerous in the beginning?
True, I am excavating the burrows most readily accessible to my
pocket-trowel. Perhaps the secret of the absentees lies at the bottom
of those retreats which are more difficult to inspect. Let us appeal to
arms, suppler and stronger than my own; let us take a spade and dig
deep into the soil. I am rewarded for my perseverance; Females are
found at last, as many as I could wish. They are alone, without
provisions, at the bottom of a perpendicular gallery whose depth would
discourage any one not endowed with exemplary patience.
Everything is now explained. From the time of the spring awakening and
even sometimes at the end of autumn, before they have made the
acquaintance of their collaborators, the valiant future mothers set to
work, choosing a good place and sinking a shaft which, if it does not
yet attain the requisite depth, will at least be the starting-point of
more considerable works. It is in these shafts, more or less advanced,
that the suitors come in search of the workers, at the secret hours of
the twilight. Sometimes there are several of them. It is not uncommon
to find two or three gathered round the same bride. As one is enough,
the others decamp and pursue their quest elsewhere, as soon as the
lady’s choice and perhaps a bit of a skirmish have concluded the
matter.
The quarrels among these pacific creatures cannot be very serious. A
little grappling with the legs, whose toothed shanks grate upon the
rigid harness; a few tumbles provoked by blows of the trident: the
strife amounts to no more than this. When the superfluous wooers are
gone, the pairing takes place, the household is established; and then
and there bonds are contracted which are remarkably enduring.
Are these bonds never dissolved? Do the husband and wife recognize each
other among their fellows? Are they mutually faithful? Cases of
connubial disloyalty are very rare, are in fact unknown, on the part of
the mother, who has long ceased to leave the house; on the other hand,
they are frequent on the part of the father, whose duties often compel
him to go abroad. As we shall see presently, he is throughout his life
the purveyor of victuals, the person appointed to cart away the
rubbish. Single-handed, at different hours of the day, he shoots out of
doors the earth thrown up by the mother’s excavations; single-handed he
explores the surroundings of the house at night, in quest of pellets
whereof to knead the children’s loaves.
Sometimes two burrows are side by side. May not the collector of
provisions, on returning home, easily mistake the door and enter
another’s house? On his walks abroad, does he never happen to meet
ladies taking the air who have not yet settled down and then, forgetful
of his first mate, does he not qualify for divorce? The question was
worth looking into. I have tried to solve it in the following manner.
I take two couples from the ground when the excavations are in full
swing. Indelible marks, scratched with a needle on the lower edge of
the wing-cases, will enable me to distinguish them one from the other.
The four objects of my experiment are distributed at random, singly,
over the surface of a sandy space some eighteen inches deep. Soil of
this depth will be sufficient for the excavations of a night. In case
provisions should be needed, I supply a handful of Sheep-droppings. A
large earthenware pan, turned upside down, covers the arena, prevents
escape and affords the darkness favourable to peaceful concentration.
Next day, I obtain splendid results. There are two burrows in the
settlement and no more; the couples have formed again as they were:
each Jack has recovered his Jill. A second experiment, made next day,
and yet a third meet with the same success: the marked couples are
together, those not marked are together, at the bottom of the shaft.
Five times more, day after day, I make them set up house anew. Things
now begin to go amiss. Sometimes each of my four subjects settles down
apart from the rest; sometimes the same burrow contains the two males
or the two females; sometimes the same vault receives the two sexes,
but associated otherwise than in the beginning. I have repeated the
experiment too often. Henceforth, disorder reigns. My daily shufflings
have demoralized the diggers; a crumbling house that has constantly to
be begun afresh has put an end to lawful unions. Respectable married
life becomes impossible from the moment when the house falls in from
day to day.
No matter: the first three experiments, made when scares, time after
time renewed, had not yet tangled the delicate connecting thread, seem
to point to a certain constancy in the Minotaur’s household. The male
and female recognize each other, find each other in the confusion of
events which my mischievous doings force upon them; they exhibit a
mutual fidelity, a very unusual quality in the insect class, which is
but too prone to forget its matrimonial obligations.
How do they recognize each other? We recognize one another by our
facial features, which vary so greatly in different individuals,
notwithstanding their common likeness. They, to tell the truth, have no
faces; there is no expression beneath their rigid masks. Besides,
things happen in profound darkness. The sense of sight therefore does
not count at all.
We recognize one another by our speech, by the tone, the inflection of
our voices. They are dumb, deprived of all means of vocal appeal. There
remains the sense of smell. Minotaurus finding his mate makes me think
of my friend Tom, the house-dog, who, when the moon stirs his emotions,
lifts his nose in the air, sniffs the breeze and jumps the
garden-walls, eager to obey the remote and magical summons; he puts me
in mind of the Great Peacock Moth, [36] who hastens from miles afield
to pay his respects to the newly-hatched maid.
The comparison, however, is far from being complete, the Dog and the
big Moth get wind of the wedding before they know the bride. The
Minotaur, on the contrary, has no experience of long pilgrimages and
makes his way, within a short radius, to her whom he has already
frequented; he recognizes her, he distinguishes her from the others by
certain emanations, certain individual secrets inappreciable to any
save the enamoured swain. Of what do these effluvia consist? The insect
did not tell me; and that is a pity, for it might have taught us things
worth knowing about its powers of smell.
Now how is the work divided in this household? To discover this is no
easy undertaking, for which the point of a penknife will suffice. He
who proposes to inspect the burrowing insect in its home must resort to
exhausting excavations. We have not here the chamber of the Sacred
Beetle, the Copris or other Beetles, which is uncovered without trouble
with a mere pocket-trowel; we have a shaft whose floor can be reached
only with a stout spade, manfully wielded for hours at a stretch. And,
if the sun be at all hot, you return from your drudgery, feeling
utterly worn out.
Oh, my poor joints, grown rusty with age! To suspect the existence of a
beautiful problem underground and to be unable to dig! The zeal
survives, as ardent as in the days when I used to demolish the spongy
slopes beloved of the Anthophoræ; [37] the love of research has not
abated; but my strength fails me. Fortunately I have an assistant in
the person of my son Paul, who lends me the vigour of his wrists and
the suppleness of his back. I am the head, he is the arm.
The rest of the family, including the mother—and she not the least
eager—usually go with us. You cannot employ too many eyes when the pit
becomes deep and you have to observe from a distance the tiny objects
unearthed by the spade. What one overlooks another will detect. Huber,
[38] when he was blind, studied the Bees through the intermediary of a
clear-sighted and devoted helper. I am even better off than the great
Swiss naturalist. My sight, which is still fairly good though much
worn, is assisted by the perspicacious eyes of all my family. I owe it
to them that I am able to continue my research-work: let me thank them
here and now.
We are on the spot early in the morning. We find a burrow with a large
mound formed of cylindrical plugs forced out as though by blows of the
hammer. We clear away this hillock and a pit opens below it. A good,
long reed, gathered on the way, is inserted in the hole. Pushed farther
home, as the surface soil is cleared away, it will serve us as a guide.
The soil is quite loose, unmixed with pebbles, which are obnoxious to
the digging insect that loves the perpendicular and especially
obnoxious to the cutting edge of the exploring spade. It consists
solely of sand cemented with a little clay. The digging would therefore
be easy, if one had not to reach depths in which tools become extremely
difficult to handle unless the whole area is overturned. The following
method gives good results without unduly increasing the volume of earth
removed, a procedure to which the owner might object.
A space of roughly a yard in radius is attacked around the shaft. As
the guiding reed is laid bare, we push it lower in. It began by going
about nine inches underground, it is now eighteen inches down. Soon it
becomes impracticable to remove the earth with the spade, which is
hampered by lack of room. We have to go on our knees, collect the
rubbish in both hands and toss it outside. The more we do so, the
deeper the hole becomes, increasing the already enormous difficulty. A
moment arrives when, to continue, we are obliged to lie flat on our
stomachs and dip the front of our bodies into the hole, as far as our
more or less supple waists allow. Each dip flings up a good handful of
earth. And the reed goes lower and lower, without giving any indication
of an immediate check.
It is impossible for my son to continue in this fashion, despite his
youthful elasticity. To reach the bottom of the disheartening cavity,
he lowers the level of the sustaining soil. A cut is made at one side
of the circular pit, giving just enough space to admit his two knees.
This is a shelf, a ledge, which will be lowered as we go on. The work
is resumed, this time more actively; but the reed, when we consult it,
descends, descends to a great depth.
We lower the supporting shelf still more and employ the spade again.
When the rubbish is removed, the excavation is more than three feet
deep. Are we there at last? Not at all: the terrible reed dives still
lower down. Let us sink the ledge again and continue. Perseverance is
rewarded. At four feet and a half, the reed touches the obstacle; it
goes no farther. Victory! The task is done: we have reached the
Minotaur’s chamber.
The pocket-trowel discreetly lays it bare and the occupants appear:
first the male, and, a little lower down, the female. When the couple
are removed, a dark, circular patch is seen: this is the top of the
column of provisions. Let us be careful: dig gently! What we have to do
is to cut away the central clod at the bottom of the pit, to separate
it from the surrounding earth and then, slipping the trowel underneath
and using it as a lever, to extract the block all in a lump. There!
That’s done! We have the couple and their nest. A morning of arduous
digging has procured us these treasures: Paul’s broiling back can tell
us at the cost of what efforts.
This depth of nearly five feet is not and could not be uniform: there
are many causes that induce it to vary, such as the degree of moisture
and consistency in the soil traversed, the insect’s passion for work
and the time available, according to the more or less remote date of
the egg-laying. I have seen burrows dip a little deeper; I have seen
others reach not quite three feet. In any case, Minotaurus, to settle
his family, requires a lodging of extravagant depth, such as is dug by
no other burrower of my acquaintance. Presently we shall have to ask
ourselves what imperious needs oblige the collector of Sheep-droppings
to dwell at such depths.
Before leaving the spot, let us note a fact whose evidence will be of
value later. The female was right at the bottom of the burrow; above
her, at some distance, was the male: both were struck motionless with
fright in the midst of an occupation whose nature we are as yet hardly
able to specify. This detail, observed repeatedly in the different
burrows dug up, seems to show that each of the two fellow-workers has a
definite place.
The mother, more skilled in nursery matters, occupies the lower floor.
She alone digs, versed as she is in the properties of the
perpendicular, which economizes labour while giving the greatest depth.
She is the engineer, always in touch with the working-face of the
shaft. The other is her labourer. He is stationed in the rear, ready to
load the rubbish on his horny hod. Later, the excavatrix becomes a
baker: she kneads the cakes for the children into cylinders; the father
is then the baker’s boy. He brings her from outside the wherewithal for
making flour. As in every well-regulated household, the mother is
minister of the interior, the father minister of the exterior. This
would explain the invariable position in their cylindrical home. The
future will tell us if these conjectures truly correspond with the
reality.
For the moment, let us examine at our leisure, in the comfort of our
own home, the central clod, so laboriously acquired. It contains a
preserved foodstuff in the shape of a sausage nearly as long and as
thick as a man’s finger. This is composed of a dark, compact material,
arranged in layers, which we recognize as the Sheep-pellets reduced to
small crumbs. Sometimes the dough is fine and almost homogeneous from
one end of the cylinder to the other; more often the piece is a sort of
hardbake, in which large fragments are held together by an amalgamation
of cement. The baker apparently varies the more or less careful
composition of her confectionery according to the time at her disposal.
The stuff is tightly packed into the closed end of the burrow, where
the walls are smoother and more elaborately treated than in the rest of
the shaft. The point of the knife easily rids it of the surrounding
earth, which peels off like a rind. In this way I obtain the
food-cylinder free from any earthy stain.
When this is done, let us enquire into the matter of the egg, for this
pastry has certainly been manipulated for the sake of a grub. Guided by
what I learnt in the old days from the Geotrupes, who lodge the egg at
the lower end of their black-pudding, in a special recess contrived in
the very heart of the provisions, I look to find the egg of the
Minotaur, their near kinsmen, in a hatching-chamber right at the bottom
of the sausage. I am mistaken. The egg sought for is not at the spot
anticipated, nor at the other end, nor in any part whatsoever of the
victuals.
A search outside the provisions reveals it me at last. It is below the
food, in the sand itself, and has benefited by none of the meticulous
cares wherein mothers excel. There is here not a smooth-walled chamber,
such as the delicate skin of the new-born larva would seem to demand,
but a rough, irregular cavity, the result of a mere falling in rather
than of material ingenuity. The grub is to be hatched in this rude
crib, at some distance from its provisions. To reach the food, it will
have to demolish and pass through a ceiling of sand some millimetres
thick. As regards her offspring, the Minotaur mother is an expert in
the art of sausage-making, but she knows nothing at all of the
endearments of the cradle.
Anxious to watch the hatching and observe the growth of the larva, I
install my find in cells reproducing as nearly as may be the natural
conditions. A glass tube closed at one end of the same diameter as the
burrow receives first a bed of moist sand to represent the original
soil. On the surface of this layer I place the egg. A little of the
same sand forms the ceiling through which the new-born grub must pass
to reach the provisions. There are none other than the regulation
sausage, rid of its earthy rind. A few careful strokes of the rammer
make it occupy the available space. Lastly, a plug of wet, but not
dripping cotton-wool fills up the cell completely. This will be a
source of permanent moisture, similar to that of the depths in which
the mother establishes her family. The provisions will thus remain
soft, in accordance with the youthful consumer’s needs.
This softness of the food and the flavour produced by the fermentation
due to moisture probably have something to say to the instinct to bore
deeply at the time of egg-laying. What do the father and mother really
want? Do they dig to ensure their own welfare? Do they go so low down
in order to find an agreeable temperature and moisture when the fierce
summer heat prevails? Not at all. Endowed with a robust constitution
and loving the sun’s kisses as other insects do, they both inhabit,
until the family is founded, a modest dwelling in a convenient
position. Not even the inclemencies of winter drive them to seek a
better shelter.
At nesting-time it is another matter. They descend to a great depth
underground. Why? Because their family, which is hatched about June,
must find soft food awaiting it at a time when the heat of summer will
bake the soil hard as a brick. The tiny sausage, if it lay at a depth
of ten or twenty inches, would become hard as horn and uneatable; and
the grub, incapable of biting into the tough ration, would perish. It
is important therefore that the victuals should be cellared at a depth
where the most violent heat of the sun cannot lead to desiccation.
Many other food-packers know the risks of excessive dryness. Each has
his own method of warding off the danger. The Geotrupes makes his home
under the voluminous heap dropped by the Mule, an excellent obstacle to
speedy desiccation. Besides, he works in autumn, the season of frequent
showers; moreover, he gives his product the shape of a big roly-poly,
of which the middle part, the only part used, gives up its moisture
very slowly. For these several reasons, he digs burrows of medium
depth.
The Sacred Beetle likewise attaches no value to remote retreats. He
houses his offspring in vaults at no great distance from the surface of
the soil; but he makes amends by fashioning the victuals into a ball:
he knows that round tins keep their contents moist. The Copris does
very much the same with his ovoids. So with the others, the Sisyphus,
[39] the Gymnopleurus. [40] The Minotaur alone takes an enormous dive
underground.
There are different reasons that call for this. Here is a second, more
imperious even than the first. The dung-workers all go for recent
materials, fully endowed with their toothsome and plastic qualities. To
this system of baking the Minotaur makes a stronger exception: what he
needs is old, dry, arid stuff. I have never seen him, either in my
cages or in the open country, gather pellets quite recently ejected. He
wants them dried by long exposure to the sun’s rays.
But, to suit the grub, the hard food has to simmer for a long time and
to improve by keeping, in surroundings saturated with moisture. So the
coarse whole-meal bread is replaced by the bun. The laboratory in which
the children’s food is prepared must therefore be a very deep-seated
factory, which can never be entered by the drought of summer however
long prolonged. Here succulence and flavour are imparted to dry
materials which no other member of the stercoral guild thinks of
employing, for lack of an annealing-chamber, of which Minotaurus
possesses the monopoly. And, the better to fulfil his mission in life,
he also possesses an instinct to bore to enormous depths. The nature of
the victuals makes an incomparable well-sinker of the three-pronged
Dung-beetle; his talents have been determined by a hard crust.
CHAPTER V
MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: FIRST ATTEMPTS AT OBSERVATION
Long ago, the Minotaur’s cousins, the Geotrupes, afforded me a
delightfully unusual spectacle, that of a prolonged association in
pairs, a real domestic couple, working in common for the children’s
welfare. Philemon and Baucis, as I used to call them, prepared their
board and lodging with equal ardour. Philemon, the sturdier of the two,
compressed the food by pushing it with his fore-arms; Baucis explored
the heap on the surface, picking out the best part and lowering by the
armful the wherewithal to manufacture the enormous sausage. It was
magnificent to see the mother sifting and the father compressing.
A cloud overshadowed this exquisite picture. My subjects occupied a
cage wherein any inspection demanded an excavation on my part,
discreetly conducted, it is true, but enough to startle the labourers
and make them stop work. With unsparing patience, I thus obtained a
series of snapshots which the logic of things, that delicate
cinematographer, afterwards combined to form a living scene. I wished
for more than this: I should have liked to observe the couple in
continuous action, from the beginning to the end of their task. I had
to abandon the idea, so impossible did it seem to me to observe the
mysterious underground happenings without perturbing excavations.
To-day, my ambition to achieve the impossible has returned. The
Minotaur proclaims himself a rival of the Geotrupes; he even appears to
be their superior. I propose to follow his actions underground, at a
depth of a yard and more, completely at my ease, without in any way
distracting the insect from its occupations. To do this I shall need
the eyes of a Lynx, which are said to be capable of piercing the
opaquest night, whereas I have only my ingenuity to fall back upon in
endeavouring to see plainly in the dark. Let us see what it can do.
To begin with, the direction of the burrow enables me to foresee that
my plan is not altogether absurd. When digging her nest, the Minotaur
descends perpendicularly. If she worked at random, following all sorts
of directions, excavation would demand an infinite area of soil, out of
all proportion to the means at my disposal. Well, her invariable
adherence to the perpendicular informs me that I need not trouble about
the quantity of sand available, but only about the depth of the bed. In
these conditions, the undertaking is not unreasonable.
As good luck will have it, I possess a glass tube which has long been
diverted from chemistry and placed at the service of entomology. It is
a yard or more in length, and over an inch in width. If fixed in a
vertical position, it will do, I think, for the Minotaur’s shaft. I
close one end with a plug and fill the tube with a mixture of fine sand
and moist clay soil, packing the mixture in layers with a ramrod. This
column will be the plot of ground allotted to the digger to work in.
But it must be kept upright and completed with different accessories
essential to successful operation. For this purpose, three bamboo canes
are planted in the earth contained in a large flower-pot. Joined at
their tips, they form a tripod, a frame supporting the whole structure.
The tube is set up in the centre of the triangular base. A small
earthenware pie-dish with a hole made in the bottom, receives the open
upper end, which projects a little and holds a layer of earth that
comes level with the brim. This will represent, around the mouth of the
shaft, the space in which the insect can attend to its business, either
to shoot the rubbish from the shaft or to gather the provisions round
about. Lastly, a glass bell, fitting into the dish, prevents escape and
preserves the slight quantity of moisture needed. A few supporting
strings and bits of wire keep the whole thing firmly fixed.
We must not overlook one most important detail. The diameter of the
tube is about twice that of the natural burrow. Therefore, if the
insect digs along the axis and in an exactly perpendicular direction,
it will have at its disposal more than the required width. It will
obtain a channel lined on every side by a wall of sand a few
millimetres thick. We may however assume that the digger, knowing
nothing of geometrical precision and ignorant of the conditions
provided for it, will take no account of the axis and will deviate from
it to one side or the other. Moreover, the least additional resistance
in the substance traversed will cause the Beetle to turn aside
slightly, now hither, now thither. Consequently the glass wall will be
completely denuded at sundry points; windows will be formed, chinks
upon which I rely to make observation possible, but which will be
hateful to the darkness-loving workers.
To make sure of these windows and save the insect from them, I sheath
the tube in a few cardboard sheaths which can be gently slipped up and
down and which fit inside one another. With this arrangement, I shall
be able, when required, and without distracting the insect from its
work, to create alternately, by a simple movement of the thumb, a
little light for myself and darkness for the Beetle. The distribution
of the movable sheaths, which slip up or down as needed, will allow the
tube to be examined from end to end as and when the accidents of boring
open up new windows.
A last precaution is necessary. If I merely put the couple simply in
the dish surmounted by the bell-glass, it is probable that the
prisoners will not realize what a small portion of the soil is
available for digging. It will be best for me to teach them the right
spot in the centre of an impregnable area. For this purpose, I leave
the top of the tube empty to a depth of a few fingers’-breadths; and,
as a glass wall would be impossible to climb, I provide this part with
a lift, that is to say, I line it with wire-gauze. When this is done,
the two insects, male and female, unearthed together from their natural
burrow, are inserted into this entrance-hall, where they will find
their familiar environment, the sandy soil. With a little food
scattered about the pit, it will be enough, I hope, to make them like
their peculiar lodging.
What results shall I obtain with my rustic apparatus, so long planned
by the fireside during the winter evenings? Certainly it is not much to
look at; it would gain a poor reception in the laboratories that are
constantly perfecting their equipment. It is peasant’s work, a clumsy
combination of common objects. I agree; but let us remember that, in
the pursuit of truth, the poor and simple are by no means inferior to
the most magnificent. My arrangement of three bamboo canes has given me
delightful moments; it has provided me with some fascinating glimpses
which I will try to set forth.
In March, at the time of the great nest-building excavations, I dig up
a couple in the fields. I install them in my apparatus. In case
provisions should be needed as a restorative during the laborious
sinking of the shaft, I place a few Sheep-droppings under the glass
bell, near the mouth of the tube. The trick of the empty entrance-hall,
calculated to bring the prisoners into immediate touch with the
workable column of earth, succeeds to perfection. Soon after their
installation, the captives have recovered from their excitement and are
diligently at work.
They were taken from their home in the full ardour of excavation and
they continue in my garden the task which I interrupted. It is true
that I changed the site of their workshop as quickly as I could return
from their place of origin, which was not far away. Their zeal has not
had time to grow cold. They were digging just before removal and they
continue to dig. Time is pressing; the pair will not willingly down
tools, even after an upheaval which one would think must have
demoralized them.
As I anticipated, the digging assumes an eccentric direction, producing
in the sandy wall a few gaps in which the glass is laid bare. These
peep-holes are none too satisfactory as regards my plans; while some of
them permit of clear observation, the greater number are obscured by an
earthy veil. Besides, they are not permanent. New ones open daily,
while others close. These continual variations are due to the rubbish
which, laboriously hoisted outside, rubs against the wall, plastering
or denuding this point or that. I take advantage of these fortuitous
openings to examine as best I may, when the light falls at a favourable
angle, the interesting things happening inside the tube.
I see over and over again, at my leisure, as often as I please and over
a protracted period, what the exhausting inspection of the natural
burrows showed me in rare and fleeting glimpses. The mother is always
ahead, in the post of honour, at the working-face. Alone she toils and
moils, with her clypeus; alone she scrapes and digs, with the harrow of
her toothed arms: her mate never relieves her. The father is always in
the rear, very busy too, but on another job. His task it is to carry
the loosened soil outside and to clear up as the pioneer goes deeper
and deeper.
This labour of his is no slight affair, as we may judge from the mound
which he throws up when plying his trade in the meadows. It is a big
heap of earthen plugs, of cylinders mostly measuring an inch in length.
You need only examine the pieces to see that the navvy handles blocks
of Cyclopean dimensions. He does not carry off the excavated soil
fragment by fragment; he ejects it in huge agglomerations.
What should we think of a miner who was obliged to hoist to the
surface, to a height of some hundreds of feet, an overpoweringly heavy
hod of coal up a narrow, perpendicular shaft which could be climbed
only by the use of his knees and elbows? The Minotaur father’s ordinary
task is the equivalent of this feat of strength. He performs it with
great dexterity. How does he manage to do it? Our bamboo tripod will
tell us.
From time to time, the denuded points of the tube afford me a glimpse
of his doings. He is stationed at the digger’s heels, raking the
loosened soil towards him by the armful. He kneads it, as its moisture
enables him to do, he works it up into a plug which he thrusts back
into the shaft. Then the plug begins to move. The load precedes him;
and he pushes it from behind with his three-pronged fork. The work of
transport would be a magnificent sight did the accidental peep-holes in
the gallery lend themselves better to our curiosity. Unfortunately,
they are few and small and none too clear.
Let us try to devise something better. In a dimly-lit corner of my
study I hang perpendicularly a glass tube of smaller calibre than the
first. I leave it as it is, unprovided with an opaque sheath. At the
bottom is a nine-inch column of earth. All the rest is empty and may be
easily observed, if the Minotaurs consent to work under such
disadvantageous conditions. Provided that the experiment be not unduly
prolonged, they do consent and very readily, so imperious is the need
of a burrow as laying-time draws nigh.
I extract from the soil a couple engaged in excavating their natural
shaft and place them in the glass tube. Next morning I find them
continuing their interrupted business in broad daylight. Seated a
little way off, in the shadow of the corner in which the apparatus
hangs, I watch the operation, amazed by what I see. The mother digs.
The father, at some distance, waits until the heap of rubbish is
beginning to hamper the worker’s movements. Then he approaches. By
small armfuls he draws towards him and slips beneath his abdomen the
shifted earth, which, being plastic, forms into a ball under the
pressure of the hind-legs.
The Beetle now turns about beneath the load. With the trident driven
into the bundle, as a pitchfork is driven into a truss of hay, before
tossing it into the loft, the fore-legs, with their wide, toothed
shanks, gripping the load and preventing it from crumbling, he pushes
with all his might. And cheerily! The thing moves and ascends, very
slowly, it is true, but still it ascends! How is it done, seeing that
the too smooth surface of the glass acts as an absolute check to the
upward movement?
The insurmountable difficulty has been provided for. I selected a clay
soil likely to leave a trace of its passage. With the cart before the
horse, the load itself sands the road and makes it practicable; in
rubbing past every portion of the wall, it leaves particles of earth
which constitute so many points of purchase. Therefore, as he pushes
his burden upwards, the Beetle finds behind it a roughened surface
which affords him a footing as he climbs.
This, after all, is all he needs, though it involves occasional slips
and efforts to retain his balance, which are unknown in the natural
shaft. When he comes to a certain distance from the opening, he leaves
his clod, which, shaped by the tube, remains in its place, motionless.
He returns to the bottom, not by allowing himself to fall suddenly, but
gradually and carefully, by means of the footholds by which he made his
way up. A second pellet is hoisted up and welded to the first. A third
follows. At length, with a last effort, he pushes out the whole thing
in a single plug.
This fractional division is a judicious method. Because of the enormous
amount of friction in the narrow and uneven natural shaft, the Beetle
would never succeed in hoisting the great cylinders of his mound in one
lump; he carries them up in loads which are not beyond his powers and
which are afterwards joined and welded together.
I am inclined to believe that this work of assembling the component
parts is performed in the slightly sloping vestibule which usually
precedes the perpendicular shaft. Here no doubt the successive clods
are compressed into one very heavy cylinder, which is yet easily moved
along an almost horizontal road. Then the Minotaur, with a last thrust
of his trident, pushes out the lump, which joins the others on the
sides of the mound. They are like so many blocks of hewn stone
forbidding access to the home. The rubbish thus suitably moulded
provides a Cyclopean system of fortification.
In the glass tube, the climbing is such difficult work that the insect
is soon discouraged. The frail footholds left by the load crumble and
fall off, swept away by the tarsi vainly seeking a support; and the
tube again becomes smooth over wide extents of its surface. The climber
ends by giving up struggling against the impossible; he abandons his
bundle and drops to the bottom. The works cease henceforth; the couple
have recognized the treachery of their strange dwelling. Both of them
try to get away. Their uneasiness is betrayed by continual attempts to
escape. I set them free. They have told me all that they were able to
tell me in conditions so favourable to me and so bad for themselves.
To return to the large apparatus, where the work is proceeding
correctly. The boring, begun in March, finishes by the middle of April.
From this time onward, my daily visits no longer show me on the top of
the mound a plug of fresh earth, marking a recent ejection of rubbish.
It must therefore take two or three weeks at least to excavate the
dwelling. My observations in the open even lead me to think that a
month or longer is not excessive. My two captives, disturbed in the
midst of their earlier labours and pressed for time by the lateness of
the season, cut short this work, which for that matter they were unable
to continue when the cork stopper appeared at the bottom of the tube as
an insuperable obstacle. The others, working in freedom, have an
unlimited depth of sand at their disposal. They have plenty of leisure,
if they start work in good time. Even before the end of February we see
plenty of mounds. Later, these will mark the sites of shafts four or
five feet deep. Such pits as these require a full month’s labour, if
not more.
Now what do the two well-sinkers eat, during this long period, to keep
up their strength? 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. In the
same way, in the fields, any burrow in process of construction remains
closed until it is quite finished.
This, it is true, does not prove the absolute absence of provisions,
for the father might go out at night, collect a few pellets in the
neighbourhood of the shaft, push them in, go indoors again and shut up
the house. In this way the couple would have enough bread in the larder
to last them for a few days. This explanation must be abandoned, as we
are definitely taught by what happens in my rearing-appliance.
Foreseeing a need of food, I had supplied the dish with a few
droppings. When the excavation-works were finished, I found these
pellets untouched and undiminished in number. The father, supposing him
to go strolling about at night, could not fail to see them. He had
taken no notice of them.
The peasants in my neighbourhood, rude tillers of the soil, have four
meals a day. At early dawn, on rising, a hunk of bread and a few dried
figs, for a snack, as they put it. In the fields, at nine o’clock, the
wife brings the soup and its complement of anchovies and olives, which
give a man an honest thirst. On the stroke of two, in the shade of a
hedge, lunch is taken from the wallet, consisting of almonds and bread
and cheese. This is followed by a sleep in the hottest part of the day.
When night falls, they go home, where the housewife has made ready a
salad of lettuces and a dish of fried potatoes seasoned with onions.
All told, a great deal of eating to a moderate amount of work.
Ah, how greatly superior is the Minotaur! For a month and longer,
without taking any food, he works like a madman and is always fit and
strong. If I told my neighbours, the chawbacons, that in a certain
world the labourer does a month’s hard work without a bite of food,
they would reply with an incredulous guffaw. If I say as much to the
chewers of ideas, perhaps I shall scandalize them.
No matter: let me repeat what the Minotaur told me. The chemical energy
derived from nourishment is not the only origin of animal activity. As
a source of life there is something better than digested food. What?
How can I tell? Apparently the effluvia, known or unknown, emanating
from the sun and transformed by the organism into a mechanical
equivalent. So we were told before by the Scorpion and the Spider; [41]
So we are told now by the Minotaur, who is more convincing with his
arduous calling. He does not eat, yet he is a frantic worker.
The insect world is fruitful in surprises. The three-pronged
Dung-beetle, an accomplished faster and nevertheless a remarkable
labourer, sets us a magnificent problem. Is it not possible that on
distant planets, governed by another sun, green, blue, yellow or red,
life might be exempt from the ignominy of the stomach, that lamentable
source of atrocities, and maintain its activities merely with the aid
of the radiations flooding that corner of the universe? Shall we ever
know? I sincerely hope so, our earth being but a stage towards a better
world, in which true happiness might well lie in fathoming more and
more deeply the unfathomable secret of things.
Let us leave these nebulous heights and return to the workaday question
of the Minotaur’s affairs. The burrow is ready; it is time to establish
the family. I am apprised of this by seeing the father for the first
time venture abroad in the daylight. He is very busy exploring the
expanse of the dish. What is he looking for? He seems to be seeking
provisions for the coming brood. This is the moment to interfere.
To facilitate observation, I make a clean sweep. I clear the site of
its mound, under which lie buried the victuals which I deemed necessary
at the outset, but which have remained untouched. These old pellets,
soiled with earth, are discarded and replaced by others, a dozen in
number, distributed around the mouth of the shaft. There are, as I say,
precisely twelve, arranged in groups of three, which will make it
easier and quicker for me to count them daily through the haze covering
the bell. A moderate watering, effected from time to time on the border
of soil which surrounds the bell and keeps it in position, produces a
humid atmosphere inside the apparatus similar to that of the depths
favoured by the Minotaur. This element of success should not be
omitted. Lastly, I keep a current account in which I enter day by day
the pieces stored away. There were twelve at the beginning. If these
are exhausted, we shall replace them as often as may be necessary.
I have not to wait long for the results of my preparations. That same
evening, watching from a distance, I catch sight of the father leaving
his home. He makes for the pellets, chooses one that suits him and,
with little taps of his head, rolls it as he might roll a barrel. I
steal up softly to observe the action. Forthwith the Beetle, timid to
excess, abandons his morsel and dives down the shaft. The distrustful
fellow has seen me; he has perceived some enormous and
suspicious-looking thing moving near at hand. This is more than enough
to alarm him and make him postpone his harvesting. He will not reappear
until perfect quiet is restored.
I now know: he who wishes to watch the gathering of the provisions must
display the utmost patience and discretion. I accept the facts: I will
be discreet and patient. On the following days, at different hours, I
try again, silently and slyly, until success rewards me for my
assiduous vigil.
Again and again I see the Minotaur go his harvesting rounds. It is
always the male and the male alone that comes out and goes in quest of
supplies; the mother never, never on any account, shows herself, being
absorbed in other occupations at the bottom of the burrow. The
provisions are transported sparingly. Down below, it seems, the
culinary preparations are minute and deliberate; the housewife must be
given time to work up the morsels lowered to her before we bring others
which would encumber the workshop and hinder the manipulation. In ten
days, beginning with the 13th of April, the date on which the male
leaves home for the first time, I count twenty-three pellets stored
away, say an average of a little over two in the twenty-four hours. In
all, ten days’ harvesting and two dozen morsels to manufacture the
sausage which will form the ration of one grub.
Let us try to catch a glimpse of the couple’s behaviour in private. In
this connection I can have recourse to two methods, which, if employed
in alternation and with perseverance, may give me the much-desired
spectacle in a fragmentary form. In the first place, there is a large
tripod. The narrow column of earth affords, as we know, incidental
peep-holes, situated at different heights. I avail myself of these to
take a glance at what happens inside. In the second place, a
perpendicular, uncovered tube, the same which I used when investigating
the climbing, receives a couple removed from the ground a few hours
before, while actively engaged on preparing the foodstuffs.
I quite expect that my device will fail to have any lasting effect.
Soon demoralized by the peculiarity of their new residence, the two
insects will refuse to work, will become restless and wish to get away.
No matter: before their nest-building ardour dies down, they may be
able to supply me with valuable details. On combining the facts
collected by means of the two methods, I obtain the following data.
The father goes out and selects a pellet whose length is greater than
the diameter of the pit. He conveys it to the mouth, either backwards,
by dragging it with his fore-feet, or straight ahead, by rolling it
with little thrusts of his clypeus. He reaches the edge of the hole.
Will he fling the lump down the precipice with one last push? Not at
all: he has plans that are incompatible with a violent fall.
He enters, clasping the pellet with his legs and taking care to insert
it by one end. On reaching a certain distance from the bottom, he has
only to slant the piece slightly to make it find a support at its two
ends against the walls of the shaft: this because of the greater length
of its main axis. He thus obtains a sort of temporary flooring able to
bear the load of two or three pellets. The whole forms the workshop in
which the father will perform his task without disturbing the mother,
who is herself engaged below. It is the mill whence will be lowered the
meal for making the cakes.
The miller is well-equipped for his work. Look at his trident. On the
solid foundation of the corselet stand three sharp spears, the two
outer ones long, the middle one short, all three pointing forwards.
What purpose does this weapon serve? At first sight, one would take it
for a mere masculine decoration, the corporation of Dung-beetles
boasting many such, of various forms. Well, it is something more than
an ornament: the Minotaur turns his gaud into a tool.
The three points of unequal length describe a concave arc, wide enough
to admit a spherical dropping. Standing on his incomplete and quaking
floor, which demands the employment of his four hind-legs, propped
against the walls of the shaft, how will the Beetle manage to keep the
slippery pellet in position and break it up? Let us watch him at work.
Stooping a little, he drives his fork into the piece, which is
thenceforth rendered stationary, for it is held in the crescent-shaped
jaws of the implement. The fore-legs are free; with their toothed
shanks they can saw the morsel, shred it and reduce it to fragments
which gradually fall through the gaps in the flooring and reach the
mother below.
The substance which the miller shoots down is not a flour passed
through the bolting-sieve, but rather a coarse meal, a mixture of
pulverized remnants and of pieces hardly ground at all. Incomplete
though it be, this preliminary grinding will be of the greatest
assistance to the mother in her tedious job of bread-making: it will
shorten the work and allow the best and the second best to be separated
forthwith. When everything on the upper story, including the floor
itself, is ground to powder, the horned miller returns to the open air,
gathers a fresh harvest and starts his work of crumbling anew entirely
at his leisure.
Nor is the baker inactive in her kitchen. She collects the remnants
pouring down around her, subdivides them yet further, refines them and
sorts them. This, the tenderer part, for the central crumb; that,
tougher, for the crust of the loaf. Turning this way and that, she pats
the material with the battledore of her flat arms; she arranges it in
layers, which presently she compresses by stamping on them where they
lie, much after the manner of a vintager treading his grapes. Rendered
firm and compact, the mass will keep better. After some ten days 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. This is shown by his restless marching and countermarching,
by his continual attempts to scale the glass wall. He tumbles over,
recovers his footing and begins all over again indefinitely, giving not
a thought to the burrow, which he will never re-enter.
I let the desperate Beetle exhaust himself for twenty-four hours in
vain attempts at escape. Let us come to his assistance now and restore
his freedom. Or rather no, for this would mean that we should lose
sight of him and remain ignorant of the object of his perturbation. I
have a very large unoccupied rearing-cage. I house the Minotaur in this
cage, where he will have plenty of flying-room, choice victuals and
sunlight. Next morning, in spite of all these luxuries, I find him
lying on his back, with his legs stiff and stark. He is dead. The
gallant fellow, having fulfilled his duties as the father of a family,
felt his strength failing him; and this was the cause of his
restlessness. He was anxious to go and die by himself, far away, so as
not to defile the home with a corpse and trouble the widow in her
subsequent operations. I admire this stoical resignation on the
insect’s part.
If it were an isolated, casual instance, resulting perhaps from a
defective installation, there would be no reason to dwell upon the
Beetle who met with his death in my apparatus. But here is something
that complicates matters. In the open fields, when May is at hand, I
often happen upon Minotaurs shrivelling in the sun; and these corpses
are those of males, always males, with very few exceptions.
Another and a very significant detail is supplied by a cage in which I
several times tried to rear the insect. As the bed of soil, some
eighteen inches thick, was not deep enough, the prisoners absolutely
refused to build their nests in it. Apart from this, the other, usual
operations were pursued according to rule. Well, from the end of April
onwards, the males ascend to the surface, one at a time. For a couple
of days they wander about the trellis-work, anxious to get away. At
last they tumble off, lie on their backs and slowly give up the ghost.
Age has killed them.
In the first week of June, I dig up the soil in the cage from top to
bottom. Of the fifteen males who were there at the beginning, hardly
one remains. All have died; all the females survive. The harsh law is
therefore inevitable. After helping with his hod in the lengthy task of
sinking the shaft, after amassing suitable provisions and grinding the
meal, the industrious trident-bearer goes away to die far from home.
CHAPTER VI
MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: FURTHER OBSERVATIONS
The bamboo tripod, so alien in its arrangement to the Minotaur’s
habits, might well have been the cause, in part, of the father’s
premature decease. In the glass tube, only one cylindrical cake alone
was prepared. Evidently this was not enough. Two at least are needed to
maintain the species in the actual state; more would be needed, as many
as possible, for increased prosperity. But in my apparatus there is no
room, unless the food-cylinders are superimposed and piled in columns,
a mistake which the mother would never commit.
Superimposed stories would afterwards make the emergence of the
offspring difficult. In their eagerness to reach the light, the oldest,
grown sufficiently mature and occupying the foot of the column, would
topple over and lacerate the late arrivals, who are not yet ready to
occupy the top. For a quiet, exodus it is important that the shaft
should be free from one end to the other. The several cavities must
therefore be grouped side by side and communicate, each by a lateral
passage, with the common ascension-shaft.
Long ago, the Bison Ortis [42] showed us his preserves, the rations of
so many grubs, arranged near the bottom of the burrow. A short passage
connected each of the chambers with the vertical shaft. The cells were
all grouped on one landing. Probably the Minotaur adopts a similar
system.
Indeed, when I go digging in the fields, a little late in the season,
when the father is already dead, my trowel unearths a second chamber,
with an egg and provisions, at some distance from the main chamber,
which itself contains an egg and is duly victualled. Another excavation
gives me two eccentric cells. The arrangement is the same in each case,
in the blind alley of the burrow and in its annexes: at the base, in
the sand, is an egg; above it are the victuals, packed into a column.
It may be assumed that, if the difficulty of wielding the spade at the
bottom of a funnel had not exceeded my assistant’s patience and
flexibility, similar excavations, repeated throughout the proper
season, would have added to the number of cells served by the same
shaft. How many are there altogether? Four or five or six? I do not
know exactly. A moderate number, in any case. And this is bound to be
so. The hoarders of food for the family are not excessively fruitful.
They have no time to bequeath supplies to a numerous brood.
The rearing-apparatus in the bamboo tripod has a surprise in store for
me. I inspect it after the father’s departure and decease. There is
certainly a column of provisions similar to that which I dig up in the
fields; but these provisions are not accompanied by an egg, either at
the base or elsewhere. The table is served and the consumer is not
present. Can it be that the mother is reluctant to populate the
inconvenient abode which I force upon her? Apparently not, for she
would not first have kneaded the long loaf, if that loaf was to have
proved useless. When desisting from laying because of a defective home,
she would have abstained from baking a cake that would serve no
purpose.
Besides, the same fact recurs under normal conditions. In my dozen
excavations in the fields—that their number was no greater must be
attributed to the difficulty of the operation—the egg was lacking in
three instances. The larder was deserted. No laying had taken place;
and the provisions were there, manipulated in the usual fashion.
What I suspect is that the mother, not feeling in her ovaries germs
ripened to the requisite degree, none the less labours to provide a
store of food with her collaborator. She knows that the horned dandy,
the enthusiastic helper, will disappear ere long, worn out by toil and
time. She makes the most of his zeal and his energies before being
deprived of them. Thus food is prepared in the cellar to be used
afterwards by the mother, now a widow. To these provisions which are
all the better in that they have been improved by fermentation, the
mother will return, moving them and piling them up in a lateral cell,
but this time with an egg under the heap. Thus provided for and enabled
to carry on alone, the widow that is to be will do the rest. The father
may now die; the household will not suffer unduly.
The father’s premature end may well be caused by the melancholy due to
inaction. He is a hard worker easily upset by the boredom of
inactivity. In my apparatus, he pines away, after the first cake has
been made, because the workshop is brought to a compulsory standstill,
the rest of the glass having no accommodation for superimposed cells,
which later would hinder the emergence of the family. For lack of
space, the mother ceases to lay eggs; and the father, having nothing
more to do, departs to die outside. Idleness has killed him.
In the open, the space underground is indefinite; it allows such a
group of cells as is needed by the mother’s fruitfulness to be formed
at the bottom of the shaft; but another difficulty arises, and a most
serious one. When I myself am the purveyor, there is no fear of famine.
I enquire daily into the state of the stores and I renew as required
the available provisions scattered over the surface. My prisoners,
without being overloaded, are always in the midst of plenty. It is a
very different matter in the fields. The Sheep is not so lavish that
she always drops at one spot the number of pellets needed by the
Minotaur, two hundred and more, as my subsequent observations will
testify. An emission of three or four dozen may be regarded as a good
many. The ruminant moves on and continues its distribution elsewhere.
Now the pill-gatherer is not of a roaming disposition. I cannot picture
him going far in quest of the wherewithal to endow his offspring. How
could he find his way again, after a long expedition, and come back
home, pushing with his feet the pellets which he had picked up one by
one? That flight and scent combined may enable him to light upon
windfalls at a great distance for his own refection, I am quite ready
to admit: the sober eater needs but little food; and, besides, the
matter is not urgent. But, when nest-building is in question, the need
is felt of great numbers of pellets, very quickly obtained. The Beetle,
it is true, has taken care to establish himself near as copious a heap
as possible. At night, he goes the rounds outside his dwelling,
gathering the pellets almost on his threshold; he will even continue
his search at a distance of some feet, in familiar places, where he
cannot go astray. But there comes a time when nothing is left in the
neighbourhood; everything has been harvested.
The hoarder, who cannot bear distant expeditions, thereupon perishes of
inaction; he quits the home where henceforth there is no more work for
him. Having nothing left to do for want of materials, the roller, the
bruiser of pills dies out of doors, in the open air. This is my
explanation of the males found dead on the surface when May comes. They
are the disconsolate victims of their passion for work. They abandon
life the moment life becomes useless.
If my conjecture is well-founded, it must be possible for me to prolong
the existence of these pessimists by placing gradually at the workers’
disposal as many pellets as they can wish for. It occurs to me to load
the Minotaur with favours; I propose to create on his behalf a paradise
where droppings abound, where the sugar-plums will be renewed as and
when those already there are lowered into the cellar. Moreover, this
delightful land will have a sandy soil, kept moist to the requisite
degree; a depth equal to that of the usual burrows; and lastly ample
space to allow several cabins to be grouped at the bottom, one beside
the other.
My calculations result in the structure which I will now describe. With
strips of boarding a good finger’s-breadth thick, which will later
reduce evaporation, the carpenter builds me a square, hollow prism,
measuring some 56 inches in height. Three of its sides are permanently
fastened with nails; the fourth consists of three shutters of equal
size held in place by screws. This arrangement will enable me to
inspect at will the top, the bottom or the middle part of the apparatus
without shaking the contents. The inner side of the prism measures
nearly 4 inches each way. The lower end is closed; the upper end is
free and has a ledge on which rests a wide, projecting tray,
representing the surroundings of the natural burrow. The tray is
covered by a wire-gauze dome. The hollow column is filled with moist
sandy earth, suitably packed. The tray itself receives a layer of the
earth, a finger’s-breadth in depth.
There is one indispensable condition to be observed: the earthy
contents of the apparatus must not get dry. The thickness of the planks
prevents this partly; but it is not enough, especially during the heat
of summer. With this purpose in view, the bottom third of the long
prism stands in a large flower-pot, filled with earth, which I keep
damp by watering it in moderation. A slight absorption of the
surrounding moisture through the wood will prevent the contents from
becoming parched. The same contrivance ensures the steadiness of the
apparatus, which, firmly implanted in a heavy base, will withstand the
onslaughts of the wind, if need be, all the year round.
The middle third is wrapped in a thick coat of rags which the
watering-can moistens almost daily. Lastly, the top third is bare; but
the layer of earth on the tray, subjected by me to pretty frequent
artificial rains, transmits a little moisture to it. By means of these
various devices, I obtain a column of earth, neither swamped nor
parched, of the kind which the Minotaur requires for his nest building.
Had I lent an ear to my ambitious plans, I should have had a dozen of
these appliances constructed, so many questions were there to be
solved; but it is a troublesome business, far beyond the means of my
personal ingenuity; and impecuniosity, that terrible evil of which
Panurge complained, curbs my desire for apparatus. I allowed myself two
and no more.
When they were stocked, I kept them during the winter in a small
green-house, for fear of frost in a mass of earth of no great volume.
At the bottom of his natural gallery, the Minotaur need not dread the
severe cold: he is protected by a wall of unlimited thickness. In the
narrow quarters of my divisioning, he would have undergone the sorest
trials.
When the warm weather had come, I set up my two columns in the open
air, and a few steps from my door. Standing side by side, they form a
sort of pylon, of a strange order of architecture. Not a member of the
household passes them without a glance. My own visits are assiduous,
especially in the evening and the morning, when the night work begins
and when it is finished. What happy moments I have spent, on the
lookout near my pylon, watching and meditating!
Here are the facts: about the middle of December, I install in each of
my two appliances a female, selected from among those which best lend
themselves to my designs. At this time of the year, the sexes remain
apart. The males live in burrows of middling depth; the females go down
rather lower. Some of these strenuous workers have already, without the
aid of a helper, completed or very nearly completed the well required
for the laying. On the 10th of December, I unearth one of them at a
depth of almost four feet. These early diggers are not what I want.
Wishing to observe the work when in full swing, I choose subjects
buried not too low down in the fields.
In the centre of the column of earth in each apparatus, I make a
shallow hole, which marks the beginning of the burrow. I drop the
prisoner down it; and this is enough to accustom her to the place. A
recorded number of Sheep-droppings are distributed around the opening.
Henceforth things proceed of themselves: I have merely to renew the
provisions when the need arises.
The cold season is spent in the balmy atmosphere of a green-house; and
nothing remarkable happens. A small mound is formed, hardly big enough
to fill the hollow of my hand. The hour has not yet come for serious
operations.
In the middle of February, when the almond trees begin to blossom, the
weather is very mild. It is no longer winter, and it is not yet spring;
the sun is pleasant in the daytime and at night there is a certain
charm in the blaze of a few logs upon the hearth. On the rosemary
bushes in the garden, already displaying their wealth of liliaceous
flowers, the Bees are gathering booty, the red-bellied Osmiæ are
humming, while the big grey Locusts stand twirling their great wings
and proclaiming their joy of life. This delicious season of awakening
spring should be to the Minotaurs’ liking.
I marry my captives: I give each of them a mate, a magnificent horned
male, brought home from the fields. The household is set up during the
night; and without delay the couple get to work in earnest. The
co-operation has given fresh life to the workshop. Before this, the
males, leading solitary lives in short burrows, used commonly to doze,
not caring to gather pellets or to sink shafts of any depth; the
females for the most part displayed no greater industry; the burrows
remained superficial, the mounds comparatively flat, the harvest
unproductive. As soon as the household is established, they dig deeply,
and hoard plentifully. In twice twenty-four hours, the expulsion of
rubbish has hidden the home beneath a dome-shaped heap of earthly plugs
nine inches in width; moreover, a dozen droppings have been sent down
into the cellar.
This activity is maintained for three months or longer, broken by
intervals of repose of varying duration, which are apparently rendered
necessary by the operations of the miller and baker. The female never
appears outside the burrow; it is always the male who emerges and sets
out upon his quest, sometimes when twilight falls, more often at a
later hour of the night.
The crop varies greatly, though I take care to keep the part around the
burrow properly supplied. At one time, two or three pellets are enough;
at another, as many as twenty are collected in a single night. The
gleaner seems to be influenced by the atmospheric conditions. The
harvest is usually most active when the sky looks threatening, as
though preparing for a storm that fails to materialize, or when I
myself create rain by watering the tray of my apparatus. In dry
weather, on the contrary, whole weeks pass without the slightest
attempts at storing.
As June draws nigh, feeling his end at hand, the gallant fellow
redoubles his ardour; he wishes before he dies to leave his family
abundantly provided for. With a not always well-timed enthusiasm, the
prodigal heaps pellet upon pellet, to the pitch of encumbering the
burrow and making the mother’s business difficult to carry on.
Excessive wealth is an incubus. The thoughtless Beetle recognizes the
fact at last and ejects the superfluous food from the shaft.
On the first day of June, in one of my appliances, the sum of pellets
sent down amounts to 239, a number that speaks well for the
trident-bearer’s industry. My record of the droppings, kept as strictly
as a banker’s account, confirms the enormous result. I am overjoyed by
the treasure of the Minotaurs’; but, a few days later, an unexpected
issue alarms me. One morning I find the mother dead. She has come up to
breathe her last on the surface. It appears to be the rule that neither
of the pair shall die in the children’s home. It is at a distance, in
the open air, that the father and mother meet their end.
This reversal of the normal order of decease, the mother dying before
the father, calls for enquiry. I inspect the inside of the apparatus by
unscrewing the three movable shutters. My precautions against dryness
have been fully successful. The uppermost third of the column of sand
has retained a certain moisture which gives firmness and prevents any
landslips. The middle third, with its sheath of wet rags, is even more
moist. Here the victuals are heaped up in a well-stored granary; the
male is there, brisk and energetic. In the lowest third, which stands
in the wet earth of a large flower-pot, the plasticity is as great as
that which my spade encounters in the deep natural burrow. Everything
seems to be in order; and yet there is not a trace of nest-building at
the bottom of the shaft; there are no sausages prepared or even
preparing. All the pellets are untouched.
It is quite obvious: the mother has refused to lay and consequently the
father has refrained from grinding. Directly the kneading of loaves is
discontinued, meal becomes useless. The harvest is none the less
plentiful, in view of future events. The 239 pellets to which my notes
bear witness are there, in their original condition and divided into
several heaps. The shaft is not straight; it has spiral slopes, it has
landings communicating with little warehouses. Here are kept in
reserve, at every level of the shaft, treasures which the mother will
be able to employ even after the hoarder’s decease. Pending the arrival
of the eggs and the preparation of the loaves on the offsprings’
behalf, the zealous father keeps on collecting, storing a little of the
food at the bottom of his dwelling and a great deal more in lateral
chambers, distributed over several floors.
But the eggs are wanting. What can the reason be? I begin by perceiving
that the shaft runs down to the bottom of the apparatus, which is 55
inches high. It stops suddenly at the board which closes the bottom of
the prism. This insuperable obstacle shows signs of attempted erosion.
The mother, therefore, dug as long as digging was possible; then,
coming to a barrier against which all her efforts failed, she climbed
back to the surface, worn out and disheartened, having nothing left to
do but die, for lack of an establishment to suit her.
Could she not lodge her eggs at the bottom of the prism, where a degree
of moisture is maintained equal to that of the natural burrows? Perhaps
not. In my part of the world, we had a very peculiar spring in this
year 1906. It snowed hard on the 22nd and 23rd of March. Never in this
district had I seen so heavy and especially so late a fall of snow. It
was followed by an endless drought, which turned the country into a
dust-heap.
In the apparatus, in which my watchful care maintained the requisite
moisture, the mother Minotaur seemed protected against this calamity.
There is nothing to tell us, however, that she was not fully cognizant,
through the thickness of the planks, of what was happening, or rather
about to happen, outside. Gifted with an exquisite sense of atmosphere,
she had a presentiment of the terrible drought, fatal to grubs lodged
too near the surface. Being unable to reach the deep places recommended
by instinct, she died without laying her eggs. I see no other reason
than this distrustful meteorology capable of accounting for the facts.
The second apparatus, two days after the installation of the couple,
provides me with a grievous surprise. The mother, for no apparent
cause, leaves the house, goes to earth in the sand on the tray and does
not budge, heedless of the cell where her horned mate awaits her. Seven
times over, at one day’s interval, do I carry her home, dropping her
head foremost down the shaft. It is of no avail: she climbs back
persistently during the night, makes off and goes to earth as far away
as possible. If the trellis work of the cover did not restrain her
flight, she would run away for good, seeking another husband elsewhere.
Can the first be dead? Not at all. I find him hale and hearty as ever
in the upper level of the pit.
Can these stubborn attempts at escape on the part of the mother, so
stay-at-home by nature, be caused by incompatibility of temper? Why
not? The female worker goes away because the male worker does not
please her. It was I myself who made the match, which was subject to
the hazard of my discoveries; and the suitor has not found favour. If
things had happened according to rule, the bride would have made a
choice, accepting this one and refusing that, guided by merits of which
she alone could judge. When a couple plan a long life together, they do
not lightly enter into indissoluble bonds. This at least is the opinion
of the Minotaur family.
That others, the vast majority, should become friends, fall out and
make it up again, in sudden and fortuitous encounters, is a matter of
no consequence. Life is short; they enjoy it as best they may, without
being too particular. But here we have the true household, enduring and
laborious. How is it possible to toil in double harness for the welfare
of the offspring without mutual sympathy? We have already seen the
Minotaur couple recognizing each other and coming together again amid
the confusion resulting from the upheaval of two adjoining burrows;
here we find it subject to quite as sensitive a repugnance. The
ill-mated bride sulks; she means to get away at all costs.
As the divorce seems destined to be indefinitely prolonged, despite the
calls to order which I repeat day after day for a week by restoring the
female to her burrow, I end by changing the male. I replace him by
another, no better—and no worse-looking than was the first. Henceforth
matters resume their normal course and all is as well as can be. The
shaft is deepened, the outside mound is raised, the provisions are
stored away, the factory of preserved foodstuffs is in full swing.
On the 2nd of June, the total number of pellets carried down amounts to
225. It is a splendid hoard. Shortly after, the father dies of old age.
I find him near the mouth of the burrow, convulsively clutching his
last pellet which he had not had time to carry down. The malady of age
has surprised him in the midst of his labours, has struck him down on
the harvest-field.
The widow continues her domestic work. To the riches amassed by the
deceased, she adds, by her own activity, in the course of the month,
thirty more pellets, making in all, since the foundation of the
household, 255. Then comes the great heat, which favours idleness and
slumber. The mother does not show herself any longer.
What does she do down below, in her cool cellar? Like the Copris mother
apparently, she looks after her brood, going from cell to cell,
sounding the cakes, investigating what is happening inside. It would be
an act of barbarism to disturb her. We will wait till she comes out,
accompanied by her offspring.
Let us profit by this long interval of rest to set forth the little
that I have gathered from my attempts at rearing the Minotaur in a
glass tube on the regulation diet. The egg takes about four weeks to
hatch. The first that I find, dating from the 17th of April, gives
birth to a grub on the 15th of May. This slow process of hatching can
be due only to an insufficiency of heat in the early spring:
underground, at a depth of five feet, the temperature hardly varies.
For that matter, we shall see the larva likewise taking its time and
going through the whole summer before changing into the adult insect.
It is so snug inside a sausage, in a cellar free from atmospheric
variations, far from the hurly-burly of the outer world, where
rejoicings are not unattended by danger; it is so sweet to do nothing,
to indulge in digestive slumbers! Why hurry? The bustle of active life
will come but too soon. The Minotaurs seem to hold that opinion: they
prolong as far as may be the bliss of infancy.
The grub which has just been born in the sand pegs away with its legs
and mandibles, strains and heaves with its rump, makes itself a passage
and, from one day to the next, reaches the provisions piled up above
it. In the glass tube in which I rear it I see it climbing, slipping
into crevices, making a selection from the food about it and
capriciously tasting on this side and on that. It coils and uncoils, it
wriggles about, it sways to and fro. It is happy. So am I, to see it
satisfied and glistening with health. I shall be able to watch its
progress to the end.
In a couple of months’ time, now ascending, now descending through its
column of food and stopping at the best places, it is a handsome larva,
well-shaped, neither fat nor spare, not unlike the Cetonia-grub in
appearance. Its hind-legs have none of the shocking irregularity that
used to surprise me so greatly when I was studying the family of the
Geotrupes.
The grub of the last-named has hind-legs weaker than the rest, twisted,
unfit for walking and turned over on its back. It is born a cripple.
The grub of the Minotaur, despite the close analogy between the two
dung-workers, is exempt from this infirmity. Its third pair of legs is
no less accurate in shape and arrangement than the two other pairs. Why
is the Geotrupes knock-kneed at birth and his close kinsman perfect?
This is one of those little secrets of which it is only fitting that we
should know how to admit our ignorance.
The larval stage ends in the last days of August. Under the grub’s
digestive efforts, the food-column, while retaining its form and its
dimensions, has been converted into a paste whose origin it would be
impossible to recognize. There is not a crumb left in which the
microscope can detect a fibre. The Sheep had already divided the
vegetable matter very finely; the grub, an incomparable triturator, has
taken the aforesaid matter and subdivided it yet further, grinding it
after a fashion. In this way it extracts and uses the nutritive
particles of which the Sheep’s fourfold stomach is unable to take
advantage.
To dig itself a cell in this unctuous mass ought, according to our
logic, to suit the grub, desirous of a yielding mattress for the nymph
to lie on. We are mistaken in our suppositions. The grub retreats to
the lower end of its column, retires into the sand where the hatching
took place and there makes itself a hard, rough cavity. This
aberration, which takes no account of the future nymph, and its
delicate skin, would be likely to surprise us if the homely dwelling
were not subjected to improvement.
The hermit’s wallet has retained a part of the digestive residues,
residues destined to disappear completely, for at the moment of the
nymphosis the body must be free of any impurity. With this cement,
which has undergone a prolonged refining in the intestine, the grub
plasters its sandy wall. Using its round rump as a trowel, it smooths,
polishes and repolishes the layer of stucco, until the rude cell of the
start becomes a velvet-lined chamber.
All is ready for the stripping that releases the nymph. This nymph has
peculiarities deserving special mention. The male’s trident, in
particular, is already, both in shape and size, what it will be in the
adult Beetle. At last, when October is at hand, I obtain the perfect
insect. The total period of development, beginning with the egg, has
lasted five months.
Let us return to the Minotaur mother who is provided with 255 pellets,
225 of which were amassed by the male, before he went out to die, and
30 by the widow herself. When the great heat comes, she no longer shows
herself at all, detained at the bottom of the shaft by her domestic
duties. In spite of my impatience to know what is going on indoors, I
wait, keeping ever on the watch. At last October brings the first
rains, so greatly wished for by the husbandman and the Dung-beetle
alike. Recent mounds become numerous in the fields. This is the season
of autumnal rejoicings, when the soil, which has been like a cinder all
the summer, recovers its moisture and is covered with green grass to
which the shepherd leads his flock; it is the festival of the Minotaur,
the exodus of the youngsters who, for the first time, enter into the
joys of the daylight, among the sugar-plums dropped by the Sheep in the
pastures.
However, nothing appears under the cover of my apparatus. It is no use
waiting any longer, the season is too far advanced. I take the pylon to
pieces. The mother is dead; she is even in tatters, a sign of an end
already remote. I find her at the top of the vertical shaft, not far
from the orifice.
This position seems to show that, when her work was done, the mother
climbed up to die out of doors as the father had done before her. A
sudden and final break-down overcame her on the way, almost at her
door. I expected something better; I pictured her coming out
accompanied by her offspring: the plucky creature deserved to see her
family revelling in the last fine days of the year.
I do not abandon this idea of mine. If the mother did not come out with
the youngsters, there must have been—and in fact there were, as we
shall see—important reasons for it. Right at the bottom of the column
of sand, in the part which is coolest thanks to the large, frequently
watered flower-pot, are eight sausages, eight portions of preserved
food admirably worked into a fine paste. These are grouped in different
stories, close together and each communicating with the main corridor
by a short passage. Since each of these sausages was a ration, the
brood amounts to eight. This restricted family was anticipated. When
rearing becomes a costly matter, the mothers wisely limit their
fecundity.
But here is an unexpected state of affairs: the food-cylinders contain
no adult, not even a nymph; they have nothing but grubs in them, though
these are glossy with health and almost fat enough to clamour for
nymphosis. This check in their development arouses surprise, at a time
when the new generation is full-grown, leaves the native homestead and
is beginning to dig the winter burrows. The Minotaur mother’s surprise
must have exceeded my own. Weary of waiting for her offspring, she
decided to set out by herself before her strength was completely
exhausted, lest she should block the ascending shaft. A spasm, due to
the inexorable toxin of old age, struck her down almost on the
threshold of the dwelling.
The reason for this abnormal prolongation of the larval state escapes
me. Perhaps it should be attributed to some hygienic flaw in my
rearing-apparatus. It is obvious that all my care was unable to realize
fully the conditions of well-being which the grubs would have found in
the dampness of a deep, unlimited soil. Within a narrow prism of sand,
too much exposed to the variations of temperature and humidity, feeding
did not take place with the customary appetite and growth was slower in
consequence. After all, these belated larvæ appear to be in first-rate
fettle. I expect to see them undergo their transformation at the end of
the winter. Like the young shoots whose development is interrupted by
the inclemency of the season, they await the stimulus of spring.
CHAPTER VII
MINOTAURUS TYPHŒUS: MORALITY
This is the moment to recapitulate the Minotaur’s merits. When the
severe cold is over, he sets forth in quest of a mate, buries himself
with her and thenceforth remains faithful to her, despite his frequent
trips out of doors and the meetings to which these are likely to lead.
With indefatigable zeal, he assists the burrower, herself destined
never to leave her home until the emancipation of the family. For a
month and longer, he loads the rubbish of the excavation on his forked
hod; he carries it up outside and remains ever patient, never
disheartened by his arduous feats of climbing. He leaves the easy work
of the excavating rake to the mother and reserves for himself the more
troublesome task, the exhausting transport through a narrow,
perpendicular shaft of great depth.
Next, the navvy becomes a collector of foodstuffs; he goes catering and
gathers the wherewithal for his children to live upon. To ease the work
of his mate, who shreds and compresses the preserved foodstuffs,
packing it away in layers, he once more changes his trade and becomes a
miller. At some distance from the bottom, he bruises and crumbles the
materials found hardened by the sun; he makes them into a meal and
flour which gradually pour down into the maternal bake-house. Lastly,
worn out by his efforts, he leaves the home and goes out to die at a
distance, in the open air. He has gallantly performed his duty as the
head of a family; he has spent himself without stint to secure the
prosperity of his offspring.
The mother, on her side, allows nothing to divert her from her
housekeeping. Throughout her working life, she never goes out: domi
mansit, as the ancients used to say of their model matrons: she stays
at home, kneading her cylindrical loaves, filling them with an egg,
watching them until the exodus arrives. When the time comes for the
autumnal merry-making, she at last returns to the surface, accompanied
by her youngsters, who disperse at will to feast in places frequented
by the Sheep. Thereupon, having nothing left to do, the devoted
creature perishes.
Yes, amid the general indifference of the fathers towards their
offspring, Minotaurus displays a most remarkable zeal where his family
is concerned. Forgetful of himself, refusing to be led away by the
rapturous delights of spring, at a time when it would be so pleasant to
see a little of the country, to feast among his fellows, to tease and
flirt with his fair neighbours, he sticks to his work underground and
wears himself out to leave a fortune to his family. Here is one who,
when his limbs stiffen in death, is well entitled to say:
“I have done my duty; I have worked.”
Now whence did this industrious labourer derive his self-abnegation and
his ardour for the welfare of his young? Men tell us that he acquired
them by a slow progress from middling to good, from good to excellent.
Fortuitous circumstances, hostile one day, favourable the next, have
taught him what he knows. He has learnt, as man does, by experience: he
too develops, progresses and improves himself.
In his little Dung-beetle brain, the lessons of the past leave lasting
impressions which, matured by time, ripen into more considered actions.
Necessity is the supreme inspirer of the instincts. Spurred by
necessity, the animal is its own artisan; by its own energies it has
made itself as we know it, with its implements and its trade. Its
habits, its capacity and dexterity are integrals of infinite minuteness
acquired on the illimitable path of time.
Such is the argument of the theorists, an argument sufficiently
imposing to allure any independent mind, did not the empty resonance of
words usurp the full sonority of reality. Let us question the Minotaur
about all this. To be sure, he will not reveal to us the origin of
instinct; he will leave the problem as obscure as ever; but he will at
least be able to cast a glimmer into some little corner; and any light,
however faint, even the flickering light of a taper, must be welcome in
the dark tavern into which the animal leads us.
The Minotaur works exclusively with Sheep-droppings; for the purposes
of his family, he needs them dry, toughened to the consistency of horn
by long exposure to the sun. This choice seems very strange, when we
remember that other stercoral collectors insist upon fresh products.
The Sacred Beetle, the Copris, the Onthophagus: [43] not one of these,
nor any of the others, cares for this sort of provender. All, whether
large or small, whether modellers of pears or manufacturers of
sausages, absolutely require plastic materials, retaining their full
flavour.
The trident-bearer needs the pastoral olive, the Sheep’s sugar-plum
drained of all its juices. There is room in this world for tastes of
every kind; the wisest thing is not to discuss them. Nevertheless, one
would like to know why, when he is surrounded by such abundance of
tender and succulent victuals, deriving from the Sheep or elsewhere,
the three-pronged Dung-beetle selects what the others scornfully
refuse. If he has not an innate predilection for this diet, how did he
come to throw over the excellent, in which he had the right to share
with the rest, and adopt the inferior, which is not employed elsewhere?
We will not labour the point. It amounts to this, that somehow the dry
pellets have fallen to the Minotaur’s share. This detail admitted, the
rest unfolds itself with insistent logic. Necessity, the instigator of
progress, seems to have gradually trained the male Minotaur in his
functions as a collaborator. The father of yore, an idler, as is the
rule among insects, has become an ardent worker because, what with one
experiment after another, the race has benefited.
What does he do with his harvest? He soberly feeds on it, when the
moisture in the burrow has somewhat softened the thankless morsels; he
cards great quantities of them into a felt in which he buries himself
in the winter to shield himself against the cold. But these are the
lesser uses of his plunder; the main thing is the future of the family.
Now the grub, whose stomach is at first so squeamish, would never bite
into such snacks as these, if they were left untouched. If they are to
be accepted and relished, they must be subjected to a refining which
will give them tenderness and flavour. In what laboratory is the
cooking to be done? Obviously underground, the only place where an
equable moisture prevails, free from the unwholesome excess of
humidity. Thus the quality of the food gives rise to the burrow.
And this burrow has to be deep, very deep, in order that the scorching
heat of summer may never reach them and render them useless by drying
them up. The grub develops slowly; it will not attain the adult form
until September. In its underground home, it has to brave with impunity
the hottest and driest period of the year, without running the risk of
finding its bread too stale. A depth of five feet is not too much to
save the grub and its food from the fiery floods of sunlight in the
dog-days.
The mother has the strength to dig a pit of this kind by herself,
however deep it may be. No one will come to her assistance in her
untiring work of excavation; but at the same time the rubbish has to be
shot outside, so that the shaft may be always clear. This is needed
first for the going and coming during the storage of victuals and later
for the easy emergence of the offspring.
Boring and carrying would be too much for a single worker: the warm
season would be too short for such a task. Thus, thereupon, long
prepared by the events of each successive year, a flash of light
penetrates the Dung-beetle’s brain. The father says to himself:
“Let’s lend a hand. It will make things go faster and better. I have
three horns which I will use as a hod. I propose to offer my services
to the digger and to hoist the loosened soil to the surface.”
Working in double harness is invented; the household is founded. Other
cares, no less urgent, confirm the agreement. The Minotaur’s victuals,
those compact morsels, have first to be broken up, bruised and reduced
to particles which will lend themselves better to the elaboration of
the final cake. After passing through the mill, the material must be
carefully compressed into a cylinder, in which fermentation will
complete the development of the requisite qualities. The whole business
is a slow and meticulous work.
To shorten it, therefore, and to make the most of the fine weather,
they set up in couples. The father collects the raw materials outside.
On the upper floor, he turns his harvest into meal. On the lower floor,
the mother receives the grist, sifts it and packs it into a column,
gently patting down each layer. She kneads the dough for which her mate
furnishes the flour. She works at the kneading-trough, he at the mill.
Thus, by sharing the labour, they hasten the result and make the very
utmost of the brief time at their disposal.
So far, all is well. Had they learnt their trade in the school of the
centuries, through experiments of their own devising which proved
successful from time to time, they would behave no differently. But now
things begin to go awry. There is a reverse to the medal which
proclaims the contrary of what we read on the obverse.
The cake that has just been prepared is the ration of one grub,
absolutely of one alone. The prosperity of the race calls for more.
Well, what happens? This, that the father leaves the house as soon as
the first ration is prepared; the assistant deserts the baker and goes
off to die at a distance. The excavations made in the meadows at the
beginning of April always give me the two sexes: the father at the top
of the house, engaged in shaping the pellets; the mother down at the
bottom, working on the stacked provisions. A little later, the mother,
is always alone: the father has disappeared.
As the laying is not over, the survivor has to continue the work
unaided. True, the deep burrow, which cost so much time and trouble, is
ready; so is the cell of the first-born of the family; but the others
have to be provided for and it would be advantageous to rear as many of
them as possible. The installation of each demands that the female, who
until now has led a sedentary life, should often venture abroad. The
stay-at-home becomes an out-of-doors collector; she gathers the pellets
in the neighbourhood, brings them to the pit, stores them, breaks them
up, kneads them and packs them into cylinders.
And it is at this moment of maternal activity that the father abandons
the home! He excuses himself on the score of his decrepitude. He lacks
not good-will but life itself. Reluctantly he retires, worn out with
years.
We might reply:
“Considering that the successive stages of evolution have made you
invent first housekeeping in common, a sublime discovery, and then the
deep cellar, tending to keep the preserves in good condition during the
summer; the grinding-process which gives plasticity and prevents
dryness; and the packing into sausages, in which the materials ferment
and improve: considering all this, could not that same evolution teach
you to prolong your life for a few weeks? With the aid of a most
carefully conducted selection, the affair does not strike me as
impracticable. In one of my appliances, the male held out until June,
after placing a treasure-house of pellets at his mate’s disposal.”
He in like manner would be entitled to say:
“The Sheep is not always very generous. The crops are lean around the
burrow; and, when I have rolled the few available victuals into the
burrow, I soon pine away, worn out by unemployment. If my colleague
survived till June in a scientific apparatus, it was because he was
surrounded by inexhaustible riches. The power of storing as much as he
pleased made life sweet to him; the certainty of work lengthened his
days. I am not as well-provided for as he and I allow myself to die of
boredom when I have finished gathering the poor harvest in my
neighbourhood.”
“Very well; but you have wings, you are able to fly. Why do you not go
some distance away? You would find enough to satisfy your passion for
hoarding. But you don’t do this. Why? Because time has not taught you
the fruitful device of making excursions a few steps from your home.
How is it that, in order to assist your mate till the end of her
labours, you have not yet learnt to keep up your courage for a few days
longer and glean a little farther all around your home?... If evolution
which, as they say, has instructed you in your difficult trade, has
nevertheless allowed you to remain in ignorance of these highly
important details, which are easy to carry out after a short
apprenticeship, the reason is because it has taught you nothing at all,
whether housekeeping, burrowing or baking. Your evolution is a
permanent affair. You move about within a circle with a fixed radius;
you are and always will be what you were when the first pellet was
lowered into the cellar.”
All this explains nothing. True; but to know how not to know at least
gives a stable equilibrium and repose to our restless curiosity. We are
very near the precipice of the unknowable. That precipice should be
engraved with what Dante inscribes on the gate of his Inferno:
“Lasciate ogni speranza.”
Yes, let all of us who, when we take the atom by assault, imagine that
we are storming the universe: let us abandon all hope here. The
sanctuary of origin will not be opened for us. In vain do we seek to
fathom the riddle of life: we shall never attain the exact truth. The
hook of theory catches nothing but illusions, acclaimed to-day as the
last word of knowledge, rejected as false to-morrow and replaced by
others which are sooner or later seen to be erroneous in their turn.
Where then is this truth? Does it, like the asymptote of the
geometricians, recede into infinity, pursued by our curiosity, which
always draws nearer to it without ever reaching it?
This comparison would be suitable were our knowledge a curve of uniform
development; but it goes forwards and backwards, up and down, twists
and turns, approaches its asymptote and then suddenly runs away from
it. It may chance to cross it, but only unconsciously. The full
knowledge of the truth escapes it.
Be this as it may, the Minotaur couple, in so far as our casual
observations enable us to see, are remarkably zealous where the family
is concerned. We should have to go high indeed in the animal series to
find similar instances. Furred and feathered life will afford us hardly
any equivalents.
If such things occurred, not in the Dung-beetle world but in our own,
we should speak of them as pertaining to a very fine morality. The
expression would be out of place here. Animals have no morality. It is
known to man alone, who formulates it and improves upon it gradually in
the light of his conscience, that sensitive mirror in which is
concentrated all that is best within us.
The advance of this improvement, the loftiest of all, is extremely
slow. Cain, the first murderer, after slaying his brother, reflected a
little, we are told. Was this remorse on his part? Apparently not, but
rather apprehension of a hand stronger than his own. The fear of
punishment to reward the crime was the beginning of wisdom.
And this fear was justified, for Cain’s successors were singularly
skilled in the art of constructing homicidal engines. After the fist
came the stick, the club, the stone thrown by the sling. Progress
brought the flint arrow-head and ax and later the bronze sword, the
iron pike, the steel blade. Chemistry took a hand in the business and
must be awarded the palm for extermination. In our own day, the wolves
of Manchuria could tell us what orgies of human flesh they owe to
improved explosives.
What has the future in store for us? One dares not think of it. Piling
at the roots of our mountains, picrate on dynamite, panclactite on
fulminate and other explosives a thousand times more powerful, which
science, ever in progress, will not fail to invent, shall we end by
blowing up the planet? Thrown into confusion by the shock, will the
ragged splinters of the terrestrial clod whirl away in vortices like
that of the asteroids, the apparent ruins of a vanished world? This
would be the end of all great and noble things, but it would be the end
also of much that is ugly and much that is pitiful.
In our day, with materialism in full sway, we have physics working
precisely at demolishing matter. It pulverizes the atom, subtilizing it
until it disappears, transformed into energy. The tangible and visible
mass is only appearance; in reality all is force. If the knowledge of
the future succeeded in harking back on a large scale to the primordial
origins of matter, a few slabs of rock, suddenly disintegrated into
energy, would dislocate the glove into a chaos of forces. Then
Gilbert’s [44] great word-picture would be realized:
“Et d’ailes et de faux dépouillé désormais,
Sur les mondes detruits le temps dort, immobile.” [45]
But do not rely overmuch on these heroic remedies. Let us take
Candide’s [46] advice and cultivate our garden; let us water our
cabbage-patch and accept things as they are.
Nature, a ruthless wet-nurse, knows nothing of pity. After pampering
her charges, she takes them by the foot, whirls them round her head and
dashes them to pieces against a rock. This is her way of diminishing
the burden of her excessive fertility.
Death, well and good; but of what use is pain? When a mad Dog endangers
the public safety, do we speak of inflicting atrocious sufferings upon
him? We put a bullet into him; we do not torture him: we defend our own
lives. In the old days, however, the law, with a great parade of ermine
and red gowns, used to draw and quarter criminals, to break them on the
wheel, to roast them at the stake, to burn them in a brimstone shirt:
it pretended to expiate the crime by the horror of the torture.
Morality has made great strides since then; in our time, a more
enlightened conscience compels us to treat the wrong-doer with the same
clemency that we show to the mad Dog. We put an end to his existence
without any stupid refinements of cruelty.
It even seems as though a day would come when legal murder will
disappear from our codes: instead of killing the criminal, we shall
strive to cure his infirmity. We shall fight the virus of crime as we
fight that of yellow fever or of the plague. But when may we expect to
see this absolute respect for human life? Will it take hundreds and
thousands of years to come into being? Possibly. Conscience is so slow
in emerging from its slough.
Ever since there have been men on this earth, morality has been far
from saying its last word even on the subject of the family, that
pre-eminently hallowed group. The ancient paterfamilias is a despot in
his own house. He rules over his household as over the herd in his
demesne; he has rights of life and death over his children, disposes of
them at will, barters them in exchange for others, sells them into
slavery, brings them up for his own sake and not for theirs. Primitive
legislation displays a revolting brutality in this respect.
Things have improved considerably since then, though the ancient
barbarism has not been wholly abolished. Is there any lack of people
among ourselves to whom morality is reduced to a fear of the police?
Could we not find many who rear their children, as we breed Rabbits, to
make a profit out of them? It has been necessary to formulate the
promptings of conscience into a strict law in order to save the child,
up to the age of thirteen, from the hell of the factories where the
poor little fellow’s future was destroyed for a few halfpence a day.
Though animals have no morality, which is a thing troublesome to
acquire and always undergoing improvement in the brains of the
philosophers, they have their commandments, laid down in the beginning,
immutable, imperious and as deeply imprinted in their being as the need
to breathe and eat. At the head of the commandments stands maternal
solicitude. Since life’s primary object is the continuation of life, it
is also essential that the fragile beginnings of existence should be
made possible. It is the mother’s duty to see to this.
No mother neglects this duty. The dullest at least lay their germs in
propitious places, where the new-born offspring will of themselves find
the wherewithal to live. The best-endowed suckle, spoon-feed or store
food for their children, build nests, cells or nurseries, often
masterpieces of exquisite delicacy. But as a rule, especially in the
insect class, the fathers become indifferent to their progeny. We, who
have not yet laid aside all our old savagery, do the same to a small
extent.
The decalogue orders us to honour our father and mother. This would be
perfect, if it were not silent as to the duties of the father towards
his sons. It speaks as once the tyrant of the family clan used to
speak, the paterfamilias, referring everything to himself and caring
but little for others. It took a long time to make people understand
that the present owes itself to the future and that the father’s first
duty is to prepare the sons for the harsh struggles of life.
Others, among the humblest, have outstripped it. Prompted by an
unconscious inspiration, they straightway resolved the paternal
problem, which among us is still obscure. The Minotaur father in
particular, if he had a vote in these grave matters, would amend our
decalogue. He would move to add, in simple lines imitated from our
catechism:
“Bring up your children in the way they should do.”
CHAPTER VIII
THE ERGATES; THE COSSUS
This is Shrove Tuesday, a relic of the saturnalia of old; and I have it
in my mind to do some strange cooking, which would have delighted the
soul of a Roman gourmet. When I let my imagination run away with me, I
want my folly to achieve some measure of notoriety. I must have
witnesses, connoisseurs who will be able, each in his fashion, to
appreciate the merits of an unknown fare of which none but the
classical scholar has ever heard before. A question so serious must be
debated in council.
There will be eight of us: my family, to begin with, and then two
friends, probably the only persons in the village in whose presence I
may venture on these eccentricities of the table without provoking
comments on what would be regarded as a depraved taste.
One of them is the schoolmaster. Let us call him by his name, Julian,
as he has no objection and is not afraid of what foolish people will
say if ever they get to hear of our banquet. He is a man of liberal
views and scientific training, whose mind is always open to admit the
truth in any guise.
The second, Marius Guigne, is blind. A joiner by trade, he wields his
saw and plane in the blackest darkness with as sure a hand as any
skilled craftsman who enjoys the full use of his eyes can exercise in
broad daylight. He lost his sight when a boy, after knowing the
blessings of the sunshine and the miracles of colour. To make up for
the perpetual gloom in which he lives, he has acquired a gentle and
ever-cheerful philosophy, a passionate desire to fill as best he can
the gaps left by his meagre primary education, an ear exquisitely
refined in musical matters and a sensitiveness of skin which is very
unusual in fingers hardened by the labour of the carpenter’s shop. When
he and I are talking, if he wants to know something about this or that
geometrical property, he holds out his hand to me, wide open. It is our
black-board. I trace with my forefinger the figure to be constructed
and accompany the light contact with a short explanation. That is
enough to make him understand the idea which the plane, the saw and the
lathe will translate into actuality.
On Sunday afternoons, especially in winter, when three or four logs
blazing on the hearth afford a pleasant change from the fierce blast of
the mistral, these two meet at my house. We three form the village
Athenæum, the rustic Academy where everything is discussed except the
hateful subject, politics. Philosophy, morals, literature, philology,
science, history, numismatics, archæology by turns furnish matter for
our exchange of ideas, in accordance with the unforeseen twists of the
conversation. At one of these gatherings, which lighten my solitude,
today’s dinner was plotted. The unusual dish consists of Cossi, a
famous delicacy in the days of antiquity.
The Romans, when they had devoured their fill of nations, besotted by
excessive luxury, took to eating worms. Pliny tells us:
“Romanis in hoc luxuria esse coepit, praegrandesque roborum vermes
delicatiore sunt in cibo; cossus vocant.” [47]
What are these worms exactly? The Latin naturalist is not very
explicit; he tells us nothing at all except that they live in the
trunks of oaks. No matter: with this detail we cannot go astray. The
worm in question is the larva of the Great Capricorn (Cerambyx heros).
[48] A frequent inmate of the oak, it is, in fact, a lusty grub and
attracts one’s attention by its resemblance to a fat, white sausage.
But the expression prægrandesque roborum vermes should, to my thinking,
be generalized a little. Pliny was no precisian. Having occasion to
speak of a big worm, he mentions that of the oak, the commonest of the
larger ones; and he overlooks the others or takes them for granted,
probably failing to distinguish them from the first.
Let us not keep too strictly to the tree mentioned in the Latin text,
but consider what the old author had really in mind when he spoke of
these worms. We shall find other worms no less worthy of the title of
Cossus than the Oak-worm, for instance the worm of the chestnut-tree,
the larva of the Stag-beetle.
One indispensable condition must be fulfilled to earn the celebrated
name: the grub must be plump, of a good size and not too repulsive in
appearance. Now by a curious freak of scientific nomenclature it
happens that the name of Cossus has been allotted to the mighty
caterpillar [49] whose galleries honeycomb old willows: a hideous,
malodorous creature, the colour of wine-lees. No gullet, not even a
Roman’s, would have dared to swallow anything so loathsome. The Cossus
of the modern naturalists is certainly not that of the epicures of old.
In addition to the larvæ of the Capricorn and the Stag-beetle, which
have been identified by the writers with Pliny’s famous worm, I know
another which, in my opinion, would fulfil the requisite conditions
even better. I will tell you how I discovered it.
The short-sighted law of the land has nothing to say to the slayer of
noble trees, the unimaginative fool who, for a handful of crown-pieces,
pillages the stately woods, lays bare the countryside, dries up the
clouds and turns the soil into a parching slag-heap. There was in my
neighbourhood a magnificent clump of pine-trees, the joy of the
Black-bird, the Thrush, the Jay, and other passers-by, of whom I was
one and not the least assiduous. The owner had it cut down. Two or
three years after the massacre, I visited the spot.
The pines had disappeared, converted into timber and firewood; nothing
remained but the enormous stumps, which were too difficult to extract.
They were doomed to rot where they stood. Not only had the weather left
its marks upon them, but their interior was full of wide galleries, the
signs of a vigorous population completing the work of death begun by
man. It struck me that it would be as well to enquire what was swarming
inside them. The landlord had made the most of his coppice; he left it
to me to make the most of the ideas which it suggested, since these had
no value for him.
One fine afternoon in winter, all my family foregather and, with my son
Paul wielding a heavy implement, we proceed to break up a couple of
stumps. The wood, hard and dry outside, has been transformed inside
into very soft layers, like slabs of touchwood. In the midst of this
moist, warm decay, a worm as thick as my thumb abounds. Never have I
seen a fatter one.
Its ivory whiteness is pleasing to the eye and its satin-like delicacy
is soft to the touch. If we can for once emancipate ourselves from
gastronomic prejudices, it is even appetizing, resembling as it does a
translucent bag filled to bursting-point with fresh butter. At the
sight of it, an idea occurs to us: this must be the Cossus, the true
Cossus, far superior to the coarse grub of the Capricorn. Why not try
the much-vaunted fare? Here is a capital opportunity, which perhaps
will never occur again.
We gather a plentiful crop, therefore, in the first place so that we
may study the grub, whose shape proclaims it to be the larva of a
Longicorn, or Long-horned Beetle, and in the second place to
investigate the culinary problem. We want to know what insect exactly
is represented by this larva; we also want to discover the edible value
of the Cossus. It is Shrove Tuesday, a propitious date for such
extravagances of the table.
I know not with what sauce the Cossus was eaten in the days of the
Cæsars; no Aepicus [50] of the period has bequeathed us any information
in this respect. Ortolans are roasted skewered on a spit; to add the
seasoning of any complicated dressing would be a profanation. Let us do
the same with the Cossi, those Ortolans of entomology. Stuck in a row
on a skewer, they are grilled over red-hot charcoal. A pinch of salt,
the necessary condiment of our meats, is the only extraneous relish.
The roast turns a golden brown, shrivels slowly and sheds a few oily
tears, which take fire on touching the coal and burn with a fine white
flame. The dish is ready. Let us serve it hot.
Encouraged by my example, my family bravely attack their skewerfuls.
The schoolmaster hesitates, a victim to his fancy, which pictures the
fat worms of a moment ago crawling about his plate. He picks out the
smallest ones, as less likely to provoke unpleasant reminiscences. The
blind man is not so much at the mercy of his imagination, gives his
undivided attention to the dish before him and eats with every sign of
satisfaction.
All are of one opinion. The joint is juicy, tender, and very savoury.
The taste reminds one a little of burnt almonds flavoured with the
merest suggestion of vanilla. In short, the dish of worms is pronounced
to be most agreeable, one might even say first-rate. What would it not
be if the art of the ancient epicures had been lavished on its cooking!
The skin alone leaves something to be desired: it is very tough. One
might describe the new dish as the daintiest of force-meat, wrapped in
parchment; the inside is delicious, but the outside defies the teeth. I
offer it to my Cat: she refuses it, though she is very fond of
sausage-skin. The two Dogs, my assiduous acolytes at dinner-time,
refuse it likewise, refuse it obstinately, certainly not because of its
hard texture, for their omnivorous gullets are sublimely indifferent to
difficulties of deglutition. But their subtle sense of smell recognizes
in the proffered morsel something unfamiliar, something absolutely
unknown to all their race; and, after sniffing at it, they draw back as
suspiciously as though I had offered them a mustard-sandwich. It is too
new to them.
They remind me of the innocent wonder of my neighbours, the women of
the village, when they pass in front of the fishwives’ stalls at Orange
on market-days. Here are baskets filled with Shell-fish, others with
Craw-fish, others with Sea-urchins.
“Eh,” they ask one another, “are those things meant to be eaten? And
how? Roast or boiled? You wouldn’t catch me tackling that stuff.”
And, vastly surprised that there should be people capable of making a
meal off anything so loathly, they turn aside from the Sea-urchin. Even
so do my Cat and my Dogs. With them as with ourselves, exceptional food
needs an apprenticeship.
To the little that he has to say about the Cossus, Pliny adds: “Etiam
farina saginati, hi quoque altiles sunt,” which means that the worms
were fattened with meal to improve their flavour. The recipe startled
me at first, all the more so as the old naturalist is much given to
this system of fattening. He tells us of one Fulvius Hirpinus who
invented the art of rearing Snails, so highly esteemed by the
gormandizers of the day. The herd destined to be fattened were placed
in a park surrounded by water to prevent escape and furnished with
earthenware vases to serve as shelters. Fed on a paste of flour and
syrupy wine, the Snails became enormous. Notwithstanding all my respect
for the venerable naturalist, I cannot believe that molluscs thrive so
remarkably when put on a diet of flour and syrupy wine. These are
childish exaggerations, which were inevitable at first, when the
scientific spirit of research had not yet come into being. Pliny
artlessly repeats the talk of the country folk of his day.
I have much the same doubts about the Cossi that put on flesh when fed
with meal. Still, the result is less incredible than that alleged to
take place in the Snail-park. As a scrupulous observer, let me test the
method. I put a few grubs taken from the pines in a glass jar full of
flour. They receive no other food. I expected to see the larvæ,
smothered in that fine dust, dying quickly, either suffocated by the
obstruction of their air-holes or perishing for lack of suitable
nourishment.
Great was my mistake. Pliny was right: the Cossi thrive in the flour
and feed heartily on it. I have before me some that have spent a year
in this environment. They eat their way through it, scooping out
corridors and leaving behind them a brown paste, the waste product of
their digestive organs. That they are actually fatter I cannot state
for a fact; but at least they have a magnificent appearance, no less
imposing than that of others which were kept in jars filled with scraps
of their native tree-stumps. The flour is amply sufficient, if not to
fatten them, at least to keep them in excellent condition.
Enough of the Cossus and my crazy skewers. If I have studied the
question so closely, it certainly has not been with the hope of
enriching our bills of fare. No, that was not my object, even though
Brillat-Savarin [51] has said that “the invention of a new dish is a
greater benefit to humanity than the discovery of an asteroid.”. The
scarcity of the pine-tree’s plump inhabitants and the repugnance with
which the vast majority of us view any sort of vermin will always
prevent my new comestible from becoming a common article of diet. It is
probable even that it will remain a mere curiosity, which people will
take on trust without verifying its qualities. Not everybody has the
needful independence of stomach to appreciate the merits of a worm.
Still less, so far as I was concerned, was the bait of a dainty dish
the motive. My sober tastes are not easily tempted. A handful of
cherries is more to my liking than all the preparations of our
cookery-books. My sole desire was to throw light upon a point of
natural history. Have I succeeded? It may well be that I have.
Let us now consider the metamorphoses of the grub; let us strive to
obtain the adult form, so as to determine the nature of our subject,
which has hitherto remained nameless. The rearing presents no
difficulty whatever. I install my plump larvæ, straight from the
pine-tree, in flower-pots of ordinary size. I provide them with a
goodly heap of scraps from their old home, the tree-stump, choosing by
preference the central layers, which have rotted into soft flakes of
touchwood.
The grubs creep in and out of the well-stocked refectory at their own
sweet will; they crawl lazily up and down or stand still, gnawing all
the time. I need pay no further attention to them, provided the
victuals remain fresh. With this rough and ready treat I have kept them
in first-rate condition for a couple of years. My boarders have all the
happy tranquillity that comes from an untroubled digestion; and they
know nothing of home-sickness.
In the first week of July, I catch sight of a grub wiggling vigorously,
turning round and round. This exercise is to give suppleness in view of
the coming moult. The violent gymnastics take place in a large
apartment of no special structure, without cement or glaze. The big
grub, by rolling its rump to and fro, has simply pushed back all around
it the powdery ligneous matter produced by its crumbled or even
digested provisions. It has compressed and felted it together; and, as
I have taken care to keep the material suitably moist, it sets into a
fairly solid and remarkably smooth wall. It is a stucco made of
wood-pulp.
A few days later, in stiflingly hot weather, the grub sheds its skin.
The moult is effected at night and I am therefore unable to witness it;
but next morning I have the newly-divested clothing at my disposal. The
skin has been split open on the thorax up to the first segment, which
has released itself, bringing the head with it. Through this narrow
dorsal fissure, the nymph has issued by alternately stretching and
contracting, so that the cast skin forms a crumpled bag, which is
almost intact.
On the day of its deliverance, the nymph is a magnificent white, whiter
than alabaster, whiter than ivory. Add a slight transparency to the
substance of our superfine stearin candles and you will have something
nearly resembling that budding flesh in process of crystallization.
The arrangement of the limbs is faultlessly symmetrical. The folded
legs make one think of arms crossed upon the breast in a sacerdotal
attitude. Our painters have no better symbol for representing mystic
resignation to the hand of destiny. Joined together, the tarsi form two
long, knotted cords that lie along the nymph’s sides like a priest’s
stole. The wings and wing-cases, fitting by pairs into a common sheath,
are flattened into wide paddles like flakes of talc. In front, the
antennæ are bent into elegant crosiers and then slip under the knees of
the first pair of legs and rest their tips on the wing-paddles. The
sides of the corselet project slightly, like a head-dress recalling the
spreading white caps of our French nuns.
My children, when I show them this wonderful creature, find a very
happy phrase to describe it:
“It’s a little girl making her first communion,” they say, “a little
girl in her white veil.”
What a lovely gem, if it were permanent and incorruptible! An artist
seeking for a decorative subject would find an exquisite model here.
And this gem moves. At the least disturbance, it fidgets about on its
back, very much like a Gudgeon laid high and dry on the river-bank.
Feeling itself in danger, the terrified creature strives to make itself
terrifying.
Next day, the nymph is clouded with a faint smoky tint. The work of a
final transformation begins and is continued for a fortnight. At last,
towards the end of July, the nymphal garment is reduced to shreds, torn
by the movements of the stretching and waving limbs. The full-grown
insect appears, clad in rusty-red and white. The colour soon becomes
darker and gradually changes to black. The insect has completed its
development.
I recognize it as the naturalists’ Ergates faber, which, translated
into the vernacular, means “the journeyman blacksmith.” If any one
knows why this long-horned Beetle, this lover of old pine-stumps, is
called a working blacksmith, I will thank him to tell me.
The Ergates is a magnificent insect, vying with the Great Capricorn in
size, but with broader wing-cases and a slightly flatter body. The male
carries on his corselet two broad, triangular, glistening facets. These
constitute his blazon and serve no other purpose than that of masculine
adornment.
I have tried to observe by lantern-light—for the insect is nocturnal in
its habits—the nuptial charms of the blazoned Beetle of the pines in
his native surroundings. My son Paul went all over the ravaged
plantation, lantern in hand, between ten and eleven at night; he
explored the old stumps one by one. The expedition led to nothing; no
Ergates was seen, of either sex. We need not regret this failure: by
rearing the insects in the cages we learn the most interesting details
of the business.
I take the Beetles born in my study and install them, in isolated
couples, under spacious wire-gauze dish-covers placed over stacks of
refuse from the decayed pine-stumps. By way of food, I serve them with
pears cut into quarters, small bunches of grapes and slices of melon,
all favourite dainties of the Great Capricorn.
The captives rarely show themselves by day; they remain concealed under
the heap of chips. They come out at night and solemnly stroll to and
fro, now on the wire trellis, now on the pile of wood that represents
the pine-stump to which they must hasten when the egg-laying season
arrives. Never do they touch the provisions, though these are kept
fresh by almost daily renewals; never do they nibble at the fruit, at
the dainties in which the Capricorn delights. They scorn to eat.
Worse still: apparently they disdain to pair. I watch them every
evening for nearly a month. What melancholy lovers! There is no
eagerness on the part of the male, no impetuous hurry to woo his mate;
no teasing on the part of the female to stimulate her backward swain.
Each shuns the other’s company; and, when they do meet, they merely
maim each other. Under all my wire covers, five in number, sooner or
later I find either the male or the female, sometimes both, the poorer
by a few legs or one or both antennæ. The cut is so clean that it might
be the work of a pruning-shears. The sharp edge of the mandibles, which
are shaped like cleavers, explains this hacking. I myself, if I get my
fingers caught, am bitten till the blood comes.
What kind of creatures are these, among whom the sexes cannot meet
without mutilating each other, these savages with their ferocious
embraces, whose caresses are sheer mangling! For blows to be exchanged
between males, in the fierce brawl for the possession of the bride, is
an everyday occurrence: it is the rule among the greater part of the
animal creation. But here the female herself is sorely ill-treated,
perhaps after having been the first to begin.
“Ah, you’ve damaged my plume!” says the journeyman blacksmith. “All
right, I’ll break your leg for you. Take that!”
More reprisals follow. The shears are brought into action on either
side, and the fight produces a pair of cripples.
If the housing were inadequate, one could put down this brutality to
the terrified hustling of a mob of maddened creatures; but one can no
longer do so when a roomy cage leaves the two captives ample space for
their nocturnal rambles. They lack nothing in the wire dome but liberty
of flight. Could this deprivation tend to embitter their character? How
far removed are they from the Common Capricorn! He, though he form one
of a dozen huddled under the same dish-cover, for a month on end,
without any neighbours’ quarrel, bestrides his companion, and, from
time to time, caresses her with a lick of his tongue on her back. Other
people, other customs. I know one who rivals the insect of the pines in
that barbarous propensity for mutilating its fellows. This is the
Ægosoma (Æ. scabricorne, Fab.), who likewise is a lover of darkness and
sports a pair of long horns. His grub lives in the wood of old willows
hollow with age. The adult is a handsome insect, attired in bright
brown and bearing a pair of very fierce antennæ. With the Capricorn and
Ergates, he is the most noteworthy of all the Longicorns in the matter
of size.
In July, at about eleven o’clock on a warm, still night, I find him
crouching flat on the inside of the cavernous willows or oftener on the
outside, on the rough bark of the trunk. The males occur pretty
frequently. Motionless, undismayed by the sudden flashes of my lantern,
they await the coming of the females lurking in the deep crevices of
the decayed wood.
The Ægosoma also is armed with powerful shears, with mandibular
cleavers which are very useful to the new-formed adult for hewing a way
out, but which become a crying abuse among insects of the same family,
when addicted to chopping off each other’s legs and antennæ. If I do
not isolate my subjects one by one in strong paper bags, I am certain,
on returning from my nocturnal expeditions, to find none but cripples
in my box. The mandibular knife has done furious execution on the way.
Almost all the insects are the poorer by at least a leg.
In the wire cage, with chips of old willow-wood for a refuge and figs,
pears and other fruits for food, they are less intolerant. For three or
four days, my captives betray great excitement at nightfall. They run
swiftly along the trellised dome, quarrelling as they go, biting one
another, striking at one another with their cleavers. In the absence of
females, almost undiscoverable at the time of my visits, which are
possibly not late enough, I have not been able to observe their
nuptials; but I have seen acts of brutality that tell me something of
what I want to know. No less expert in chopping off legs than his
kinsman of the pines, the Ægosoma should also be somewhat deficient in
gallantry. I picture him beating his wife and crippling her a little,
not without himself receiving his share of wounds.
If these were Longicorn affairs, the scandal would not be far-reaching;
but, alas, we also have our domestic quarrels! The Beetle explains his
by his nocturnal habits: the light makes for milder manners; the
darkness tends to deprave them. The result is worse when the soul is in
darkness; and the lout who thrashes his wife is a child of the gloom.
CHAPTER IX
THE PINE COCKCHAFER
In writing Pine Cockchafer at the head of this chapter, I am guilty of
a deliberate heresy: the insect’s orthodox name is Fuller Cockchafer
(Melolontha fullo, Lin.). We must not be fastidious, I know, in matters
of nomenclature. Make a noise of some sort, give it a Latin termination
and you will have, as far as euphony goes, the equivalent of many of
the labels pasted in the entomologist’s specimen-boxes. The cacophony
would be excusable if the barbarous expression signified nothing else
than the creature intended; but, generally speaking, this name
possesses, hidden among its Greek or other roots, a certain meaning in
which the novice hopes to find a little information.
He will be woefully disappointed. The scientific term refers to
subtleties difficult to grasp and of very slight importance. Too often
it leads him astray, suggesting views which have naught in common with
the truth as we know it from observation. Sometimes the errors are
flagrant; sometimes the allusions are grotesque and imbecile. Provided
that they have a decent sound, how greatly preferable are locutions in
which entomology finds nothing to dissect!
Fullo would be one of these, if the word had not a first sense which at
once occurs to the mind. This Latin expression means a “fuller,” one
who “fulls” cloth under running water, dressing it and ridding it of
the stiffness of the weaving. What connection has the Cockchafer who
forms the subject of this chapter with the working fuller? You may rack
your brains in vain: no acceptable answer will come.
The term fullo, applied to an insect, occurs in Pliny. In one chapter
the great naturalist treats of remedies for jaundice, fevers and
dropsy. A little of everything plays its part in this pharmacopœia: a
black Dog’s longest tooth; a Mouse’s nose wrapped in a pink rag; a
green Lizard’s right eye torn from the living reptile and placed in a
kid-skin bag; a Snake’s heart, torn out with the left hand; the four
joints of a Scorpion’s tail, including the sting, wrapped up in a black
cloth, provided that for three days the patient can see neither the
remedy nor him that applied it; and many other extravagances. We close
the book, alarmed by the slough of absurdities whence the art of
healing has come down to us.
In this medley of inanities, the forerunner of medicine, the fuller
makes his appearance. The text says:
“Tertium qui vocatur fullo, albis guttis,
dissectum utrique lacerto adalligant.”
To treat fevers, we must divide the Fuller Beetle into two parts and
fasten one half to the right arm and the other half to the left.
Now what did the ancient naturalist mean by this term Fuller Beetle? We
do not know exactly. The description albis guttis, white spots, would
fit the white-flecked Pinechafer pretty well, but it is not enough to
make us certain. Pliny himself seems to have been none too sure of his
wonderful cure. In his time, men’s eyes had not yet learnt how to look
at the insect. The creatures were too small; they were fit amusement
for children, who would tie them to the end of a long thread and make
them run round in a circle, but they were unworthy the attention of a
self-respecting man.
Pliny apparently got the word from the country-folk, always poor
observers and inclined to bestow extravagant names. The scholar
accepted the rustic locution, the work perhaps of a childish
imagination, and applied it as a makeshift, without further enquiries.
The word has come down to us a fragment of antiquity; our modern
naturalists have adopted it; and this is how one of our handsomest
insects became the Fuller. The majesty of the centuries has consecrated
the strange appellation.
In spite of all my respect for ancient languages, the term Fuller does
not appeal to me because in the circumstances it is nonsensical. Common
sense should take precedence of the aberrations of nomenclature. Why
not say Pine Cockchafer, in memory of the beloved tree, the paradise of
the insect during the two or three weeks of its aërial life? It would
be very simple; nothing could be more natural: a very good reason for
putting it last of all.
We have to wander a long time in the night of absurdity before reaching
the radiant light of truth. All our sciences bear witness to this, even
the science of number. Try to add a column of figures written in Roman
numerals: you will abandon the task, stupefied by the confusion of the
symbols, and you will realize how great a revolution was made in
arithmetic by the invention of the figure nought. Like the egg of
Columbus, it was indeed a very small thing, but it had to be thought
of.
Until the future casts the unfortunate Fuller into oblivion, we will
say Pine Cockchafer, so far as we are concerned. Using this name, no
one can make a mistake: our insect frequents the pine-tree only. It has
a handsome and portly appearance, vying with that of Oryctes
nasicornis. [52] Its costume, though not boasting the metallic
splendour dear to the Carabus, [53] the Buprestis, [54] and the
Cetonia, is at least unusually elegant. A black or brown ground is
thickly strewn with capricious spots of white velvet. It is at the same
time modest and magnificent.
By way of plumes, the male wears at the end of his short antennæ seven
large superposed leaves, which, opening and closing like a fan, betray
the emotions of the moment. At first sight one would take this superb
foliage for a sense-organ of great perfection, capable of perceiving
subtle odours, almost inaudible waves of sound or other means of
information unknown to our senses; but the female warns us not to go
too far in this direction. Her maternal duties demand that she should
possess a susceptibility to impressions at least as great as that of
the other sex; and yet her antennary plumes are very small and consist
of six niggardly leaves.
Then what is the use of the male’s enormous fan? The seven-leaved
apparatus is to the Pine-chafer what his long, quivering horns are to
the Capricorn and the panoply of the forehead to the Onthophagus and
the forked antlers of the mandibles to the Stag-beetle. Each decks
himself in his own fashion with nuptial extravagances.
The handsome Cockchafer appears at the summer solstice, almost
simultaneously with the first Cicadæ. [55] His punctual advent gives
him a place in the entomological calendar, which is no less regular
than that of the seasons. When the longest days come, those days which
seem endless and gild the harvest, he never fails to hurry to his tree.
The Midsummer bonfires, reminiscent of the festivals of the sun, which
the children kindle in the village streets, are no more punctual in
date. At this season, every evening, in the gloaming, if the weather be
still, the Cockchafer comes to visit the pine-trees in the enclosure. I
follow his evolutions with my eyes. With a silent, impetuous flight,
the males especially veer to and fro, displaying their great antennary
plumes; they make for the branches where the females await them; they
fly back and forth, visible as dark streaks against the pallor of the
sky, from which the last remnants of daylight are fading. They settle,
take flight again and resume their busy rounds. What do they do up
there, evening after evening, during the fortnight of the festival?
The thing is evident: they are wooing the ladies and they continue to
pay their respects until night has fallen. Next morning, both males and
females commonly occupy the lower branches. They lie singly motionless,
indifferent to passing events. They do not avoid the hand put out to
seize them. Hanging by their hind-legs, most of them nibbling a
pine-needle, they slumber drowsily, with the morsel, in their mouths.
When twilight returns, they resume their frolics.
To watch these frolics in the tops of the trees is hardly possible; let
us try to watch them in captivity. I collect four couples in the
morning and place them in a roomy cage, with a few twigs of pine. The
spectacle hardly comes up to my expectations. This is because they are
deprived of the power of flight. At most, from time to time, a male
approaches his coveted bride; he spreads the leaves of his antennæ and
shakes them with a slight quiver, perhaps to discover if he is welcome;
he shows off, exhibiting his antlered beauty. It is a useless display:
the female does not budge, as though insensible to these
demonstrations. Captivity has sorrows that are hard to overcome. More
than this I could not see. Pairing, it seems, must take place during
the later hours of the night, so that I have missed the propitious
moment.
One detail in particular interested me. The Pine-chafer possesses a
musical instrument. Male and female are similarly gifted. Does the
suitor make use of his faculty as a means of seduction and appeal? Does
the other answer her lover’s strophe with a similar strophe? That this
happens under normal conditions, amidst the branches, is highly
probable; but I should not care to say so for certain, having never
heard anything of the kind among the pine-trees or in the cage.
The sound is produced by the tip of the abdomen, which, with a gentle
movement, alternately rises and falls, rubbing its rear-most segments
against the hinder edge of the wing-cases, which are held motionless.
There is no special appliance on the rubbing surface nor on the surface
rubbed. The magnifying-glass searches in vain for minute ridges such as
might produce a note. On either hand all is smooth. How then is the
sound produced?
Moisten the tip of a finger and run it over a strip of glass, over a
window-pane: you will obtain a fairly well-sustained sound, not unlike
that emitted by the Cockchafer. Better still: use a bit of india-rubber
to rub the glass with and you will obtain a pretty faithful
reproduction of the noise made by the insect. If the musical rhythm is
well preserved, the imitation might deceive anybody.
Well, in the Cockchafer’s apparatus, the pad of the finger-tip and the
bit of india-rubber are represented by the softness of the moving
abdomen and the window-pane by the plate of the wing-cases, a thin,
rigid plate eminently capable of vibration. The Cockchafer’s musical
instrument is thus one of the simplest.
A small number of other Beetles are endowed with the same privilege.
These include the Spanish Copris and the truffle-eating Bolboceras.
[56] Both make a sound by means of slight oscillations of the abdomen,
which gently grazes the hinder edge of the wing-cases.
The Cerambyx-beetles have another method, likewise based on friction.
The Great Capricorn, for instance, moves his corselet over its junction
with the thorax. There is here a large cylindrical projection which
fits tightly into the cavity of the corselet and forms a joint which is
at the same time powerful and mobile. This projection is surmounted by
a convex surface, shaped like an heraldic scutcheon, perfectly smooth
and absolutely devoid of any sort of fluting. This is the musical-box.
The edge of the corselet, itself smooth inside, rubs over this surface,
passing to and fro with a rhythmical movement and thus creating a sound
which is once more like that of a window-pane rubbed with a moistened
finger. Still, I am unable to make the dead insect’s apparatus sound by
moving the corselet myself. Though I hear nothing, I at least feel with
my moving fingers the shrill vibration of the surfaces rubbed. A little
more and the sound would be audible. What is lacking? The stroke of the
bow which the live insect alone is able to supply.
We find the same mechanism in the small Capricorn, Cerambyx cerdo, [57]
and in the denizen of the willows, the Rose-scented Aromia, A.
moschata. [58] On the other hand, the Ægosoma and Ergates, mighty
Longicorns both, are without the projection fitting into the corselet,
or rather possess of it only as much as is strictly necessary to join
the two parts together. Consequently the two big night-insects are
dumb.
Though we are acquainted with the simple mechanism of the Cockchafer’s
instrument, its employment none the less remains a riddle. Does the
insect use it as a means of nuptial appeal? This is likely.
Nevertheless, I have not heard the slightest grating on the pines, in
spite of all my attention at propitious hours. I have heard nothing
either in the cages, where distance formed no obstacle to the hearing.
If we would make the Cockchafer squeak, all that we need do is to take
him in our fingers and tease him a little. The sound box works at once
and does not cease until we do. What we now hear is not a song but a
complaint, a protest against misfortune. It is a singular world in
which sorrow is translated by couplets and joy by silence.
The other scrapers of the abdomen or corselet behave in like fashion.
When surprised upon her pills, at the bottom of her burrow, the mother
Copris groans, for a moment bewailing her fate: the Bolboceras, held
captive in the hand, protests with a gentle elegy; the Capricorn when
caught sets up a desperate grating. All are mute as soon as the danger
is past; all likewise persist in their silence when absolutely at rest.
I never knew any of the three to sound his instrument apart from the
alarm to which I subjected them.
Others, supplied with highly improved instruments, sing to beguile
their solitude, to summon each other to the wedding, to celebrate the
joys of life and the festival of the sunshine. Most of these singers
are mute in a moment of danger. At the least disturbance, the Decticus
[59] shuts up his musical box and veils his dulcimer, on whose notes he
was playing with his bow; the Cricket [60] furls the wings which were
vibrating above his back.
On the other hand, the Cicada raises a desperate outcry in our fingers;
and the Ephippiges [61] bemoans his fate in a minor key. Sorrows and
joys are translated into the same tongue, so that it becomes difficult
to say for what exact purpose the stridulating organ is intended. When
left in peace, does the insect actually celebrate its happiness? When
teased, does it bewail its misfortune? Does it try to overawe its
enemies with noise? Could the sound-apparatus, at the requisite moment
be a means of defence or intimidation? If the Capricorn and the Cicada
made a sound when in danger, then why are the Decticus and the Cricket
silent?
After all, we know next to nothing of the determining causes of insect
phonetics. We know very little more of the sounds perceived. Do the
insect’s ears catch the same sounds as ours do? Is it sensible, in
particular, to what we call musical sounds? Without, I may say, any
hope of solving this obscure problem, I tried an experiment which is
worth relating. One of my readers, filled with enthusiasm for what my
animals taught him, sent me a musical box from Geneva, hoping that it
might be useful to me in my acoustic researches. And it really was so.
Let me tell the story. It will give me the opportunity of thanking the
kind sender of the present.
The little musical-box has a fairly varied selection of pieces, all
translated into notes of crystal clearness which should, to my
thinking, attract the attention of an insect audience. One of the tunes
best suited to my plans is that from Les Cloches de Corneville. With
this lure shall I secure the attention of a Cockchafer, a Capricorn or
a Cricket?
I begin with a Capricorn, the little Cerambyx cerdo. I seize the moment
when he is courting his mate at a distance. With his delicate antennæ
extended motionless, he seems to be making enquiries. Now, melodiously,
Les Cloches de Corneville ring out: ding-dong-ding-dong. The insect’s
meditative posture is unchanged. There is not the least tremor, not the
least inflexion of the antennæ, the organs of hearing. I renew the
attempt, altering the hour and the degree of daylight. My experiments
are useless: there is not a movement of the antennæ to denote that the
insect pays the least attention to my music.
The same result, with the Pine-chafer, whose antennary leaves retain
exactly the same position as when all was silent; the same result with
the Cricket, whose tiny, out-stretched, thread-like antennæ should
vibrate easily under the impact of the sound-waves. My three subjects
are absolutely indifferent to my methods of exciting emotion: not one
of them gives a hint of feeling any impression whatever.
Years ago, a mortar thundering under the plane-tree in which the
orchestra of the Cicadæ [62] was performing did not for a moment
interrupt or otherwise affect their concert: at a later date, the
hullabaloo of a holiday crowd and the crackling of fireworks let off
close by failed to disturb the geometry of a Garden Spider working at
her web, [63] to-day, the limpid tinkle of Les Cloches de Corneville
leaves the insect profoundly indifferent, in so far as we are able to
judge. Are we to infer deafness? That would be going a great deal too
far.
These experiments merely justify our opinion that the insect’s
acoustics are not ours, even as the optics of its faceted eyes are not
to be compared with those of our own. A mechanical toy, the microphone,
hears—if I be permitted to say so—that which to us is silence; it would
not hear a mighty uproar; it would be thrown out of gear and work
imperfectly if subjected to the din of thunder. What of the insect,
another, even more delicate toy! It knows nothing of our sounds,
whether musical notes or noises. It has those of its own little world,
apart from which other sound-waves possess no value.
In the first fortnight of July, the male Pine-chafers observed in the
vivarium withdraw to one side, sometimes bury themselves and die quite
peacefully, killed by age. The mothers, on the other hand, busy
themselves with laying their eggs, or, more accurately, with sowing
them. They poke the soil with the tip of their abdomen, shaped like a
blunt ploughshare, sinking into it sometimes altogether, sometimes to
their shoulders. The eggs, to the number of a score, are laid
separately, one by one, in little round cavities the size of a pea.
They receive no further attention. They are positively dibbled into the
ground.
This method recalls the arachis, the African [64] Leguminosa, which
curls its floral peduncles and thrusts its oleaginous seeds with their
nutty flavour, underground to germinate. It reminds us too of a plant
of my own country-side, the subterranean or double-fruited vetch (Vicia
amphicarpos, Dorth.), which produces two sorts of pods, the first above
ground, containing numerous seeds, the second under the surface,
containing large seeds, usually no more than two in number. For that
matter the two kinds are equal in value and give a similar yield.
Let the soil be moistened and everything is ready for the germination;
the preliminary sowing has been done by the vetch and the arachis
themselves. Here the plant vies with the animal in maternal cares: the
Pine-chafer does no more than the two Leguminosæ. She sows in the
ground and that is all, absolutely all. How far removed we are from the
Minotaur, so careful of her family!
The eggs, ovoids blunted at either end, measure four to five
millimetres [65] in length. They are a dull white, firm to the touch,
as though supplied with a chalky shell copied from that of a Hen’s egg.
This appearance is deceptive: what remains after the hatching is a
delicate, flexible, translucent membrane. The chalky look is due to the
contents, which show through. The hatching takes place in the middle of
August, a month after the laying.
How shall I feed the grubs and watch them take their first mouthfuls? I
go by what I have learnt from the spots frequented by the grown larvæ.
I make a mixture of moist sand and the fine detritus of any leaves
whatever browned with decay. The new-born grubs thrive in this
environment: I see them opening short galleries here and there, seizing
on decayed particles and devouring them with every sign of
satisfaction, so much so that, if I had the leisure to continue this
rearing for the three or four years required, I should certainly obtain
larvæ ripe for transformation.
But there is no need to waste my time in rearing them thus: by digging
in the fields I obtain the fully developed grub. It is magnificently
fat, bent into a hook, a creamy white in front and an earthy brown
behind, because of the wallet in which it hoards the stercoral treasure
destined later to plaster and cement the cell in which the nymphosis
will take place. All these hook-shaped wallet-bearers, Oryctes- and
Cetonia-larvæ, Cockchafer- and Anoxia-grubs, are hoarders of fæcal
matter: they reserve in their brown paunches the wherewithal to build
themselves a lodging when the time comes.
I collect my fat grubs in a sandy soil, where lean grass-tufts grow, at
a great distance from any resinous tree except the cypress, which the
adult insect does not visit. The Cockchafer, therefore, after her
regulation frolics on the pines, came to this place from afar to lay
her eggs. She feeds frugally on pine-needles; her larva calls for the
remnants of any leaves softened by underground putrefaction. This is
why the nuptial paradise is deserted.
The larva of the Common Cockchafer, the White Worm, a voracious nibbler
of tender roots, is the scourge of our crops; that of the Pine
Cockchafer seems to me to work hardly any havoc. Decayed rootlets,
decomposing vegetable remains, are all that it needs. As to the adults,
they browse upon the green pine-needles, without abusing their
privilege. If I were a land-owner, I should not trouble my head about
their devastations. A few mouthfuls taken from the immense store of
leaves, a few pine-needles robbed of their points, are not a serious
matter. Let us leave the Pine Cockchafer alone. He is an ornament of
the balmy twilight, a pretty jewel of the summer solstice.
CHAPTER X
THE VEGETARIAN INSECTS
Alone of living creatures, civilized man knows how to eat, by which I
mean to say that he treats the affairs of the stomach with a certain
pomp and circumstance. He is an expert cook and an artist in delicate
sauces. He celebrates his meals with luxurious plate and crockery. He
officiates at table like a high-priest; he practises rites and
ceremonies. At his banquets he calls for music and flowers, that he may
masticate his portion of dead flesh in splendour.
Animals do not display these eccentricities. They merely feed, which,
after all, may very well be the true means of avoiding deterioration.
They take nourishment; and that, for them, is enough. They eat to live,
whereas many of us live, above all, to eat.
Man’s stomach is a pit in which all things edible are engulfed. The
stomach of the vegetarian insect is a fastidious laboratory to which
nothing but appointed mouthfuls are allowed to find their way. Each
guest at the vegetarian banquet has its plant, its fruits, its pod, its
seed, which it eagerly exploits, disdaining other victuals, though they
may be of equal value.
The carnivorous insect, on the other hand, has no narrow specialities
and devours any kind of flesh. The Golden Carabus finds the
caterpillar, the Mantis, the Cockchafer, the Earthworm, the Slug or any
other kind of game to his taste. The Cerceres collect, for their grubs,
bags of Weevils or Buprestes, without distinction of species. The
Bruchus, [66] on the other hand, will touch nothing but her pea or her
bean; the Golden Rhynchites [67] only her sloe; the Spotted Larinus
[68] only the sky-blue ball of her little thistle; the Nut-weevil [69]
only her filbert; the Iris-weevil [70] only the capsule of the yellow
water iris. And so with other insects. The vegetarian is a
short-sighted specialist; the meat-eater an emancipated generalizer.
Some years ago, with a success which delighted the observer that I am,
I changed the diet of various carnivorous larvæ. To those which lived
on Weevils I gave Locusts; to those which lived on Locusts I gave
Flies. My nurslings unhesitatingly accepted the food unknown to their
race and were none the worse for it; but I would not undertake to rear
a caterpillar with the first sort of leaves that came to hand: it would
starve sooner than touch them.
Animal matter having undergone a more thorough refinement than
vegetable substances, enables the stomach to pass from one dish to
another without gradually becoming accustomed to each, whereas
vegetable food, being comparatively refractory, calls for an
apprenticeship on the part of the consumer. To turn Sheep’s flesh into
Wolf’s flesh is an easy matter: a few minor transmutations are enough;
but to make mutton out of grass is a complicated process of digestive
chemistry, for which the ruminant’s four stomachs are none too many.
The carnivorous insect is able to vary its diet, all sorts of game
being of equal value.
Vegetable food involves other conditions. With its starches, oils,
essences and spices and often with its poisons, each plant tried would
be a perilous innovation, to which the insect, repelled by the first
mouthfuls, would never consent. How greatly preferable to these
dangerous novelties is the invariable dish consecrated by ancient
custom! This, no doubt, is why the vegetarian insect is faithful to its
plant.
How is this division of the earth’s abundance among its consumers
effected? We can hardly hope to understand the problem; it is too far
beyond our methods of research. The most that we can do is, by
experimental methods, to explore this corner of the unknown a little,
to seek to discover how far the insect’s diet is fixed and to note its
variations, if any. This will give us data which the future will employ
to carry the problem farther.
Towards the end of the autumn, I had placed in the vivarium two couples
of the Stercoraceous Geotrupes, with an ample heap of provender
obtained from the Mules. I had no plans as regards my captives; I had
put them there because it was an old habit of mine never to lose an
opportunity. Chance had set them within my reach; chance would do the
rest.
With the sumptuous provision which I had bestowed upon them, the
Geotrupes had had plenty wherewith to attend to their domestic affairs.
They were overlooked all the winter, without any further intervention
on my part. On the approach of spring, curiosity impelled me, in a
leisure moment, to inspect them. It had been raining as hard through
the sides of the cage, which consisted of a metal trellis, as it had in
the streets; and, as the water could not trickle away through the
wooden floor, the soil in the vivarium had turned to mud.
The sausages of food prepared by the parents were numerous, in spite of
everything, but in a shocking state. Soaked by the rain, drenched to
the very centre by continual infiltration, they fell into fragments if
I moved them. Nevertheless, each contained, in the tattered chamber
beneath it, an egg laid about the end of autumn; and this egg, spared
by the ice-cold mud of winter, was so plump, so healthy and glossy,
that an imminent hatching seemed evident.
What shall I give the grubs when they come out? I dare not count on the
remnants of the regulation sausages, reduced to bales of fibre by the
rains. As well give the new-born larvæ an old rope’s-end. What is to be
done? We will resort to a crazy artifice and serve a dish of our own
invention, one absolutely unknown to the Geotrupes.
The mess prepared for my larvæ is made of leaves decaying on the
ground: hazel-, cherry-, mulberry-, elm-, quince-leaves and others. I
steep them in water to soften them and then shred them like fine-cut
tobacco. The egg is placed at the bottom of a test-tube; and I pack a
column of my vegetable mince-meat on the top. For purposes of
comparison, other eggs are similarly lodged, but with a thankless
ration of the normal preserves soaked by the rains.
Hatching occurs during the first week in March. I have before my eyes,
when it leaves the egg, the larva which astonished me so greatly when I
first realized, many years ago, that it was a cripple. In once more
referring to this strange abnormality, I will confine myself to a few
words on the subject of the head, which is remarkably bulky, swollen as
it is by the motor muscles of the mandibular shears with broad, flat
blades, notched at the tip and bearing a strong spur at the base. It is
enough to see this dental armoury to recognize the new-born grub as one
that will not object to tackling ligneous fibres. With such a
mincing-machine, a bit of straw must be a luxury.
I watch the grubs taking their first mouthfuls. I expected to see them
hesitating, searching uneasily through these unaccustomed victuals,
such as no Geotrupes, it seems to me, can ever have used. Nothing of
the sort: this eater of dung-sausages accepts the dead-leaf-sausages
off-hand and so enthusiastically that I am convinced at the first trial
of the success of my queer experiment.
The grub finds before it, to begin with, the main nerve of a leaf. It
seizes it, turns it over and over with its palpi and fore-legs and then
gently nibbles one end of it. The whole of it goes down. Other morsels
follow, large or small indifferently. There is no picking and choosing:
what the mandibles encounter they crunch. And this goes on
indefinitely, always with an unimpaired appetite, so that the insect
attains the perfect stage without a check. When the back is black as
ebony and the belly an amethystine violet, I set my Geotrupes at
liberty. I am filled with amazement by what he has taught me.
An inverse experiment was essential. A Dung-beetle thrives on rotten
leaves; shall I be equally successful in rearing an eater of vegetable
refuse on dung? From the heap of dead leaves accumulated in a corner of
the garden for mould, I obtain a dozen half-grown larvæ of the Golden
Cetonia. I install them in a glass jar, with no other food than
Mule-droppings which have acquired the proper consistency by a few
days’ exposure to the air on the high-road. The stercoral ration is
welcomed by the future rose-dweller. I cannot see any signs of
hesitation or repugnance. When half-dry, the Mule’s fibrous scraps are
consumed as readily as the leaves brown with decay. A second jar
contains larvæ fed in the normal fashion. There is no difference
between the two groups in the matter of appetite and healthy looks. In
both cases the metamorphosis is properly accomplished.
This double success gives food for thought. Certainly the Cetonia-grub
would have nothing to gain if it thought fit to abandon its heap of
dead leaves in order to exploit the Mule-droppings in the road; it
would be leaving inexhaustible abundance, pleasant moisture and perfect
security in exchange for a scanty, perilous diet, trampled underfoot by
the passers-by. It will not commit this act of folly, however alluring
the bait of a new dish.
It is not the same thing with the larva of the Geotrupes. In the open
fields, the droppings of beasts of burden, without being scarce, are
not by any means to be met with everywhere. They are found chiefly on
the roads, which, encrusted with macadam, offer an insuperable obstacle
to burrowing. On the other hand, half-rotten dead leaves accumulate
everywhere in inexhaustible quantities. What is more, they abound on
loose soil, which is easily excavated. If they are too dry, there is
nothing to prevent their being carried down to such a depth that the
moisture of the soil will give them the requisite pliability. An insect
is not a Geotrupes, an earth-borer, for nothing. A silo sunk a few
inches deeper than the ordinary burrows would make an excellent
steeping-vat.
Since the Geotrupes-grubs thrive on a column of rotten leaves, as my
experiments have proved, it would seem that the maker of dung-sausages
would gain greatly by slightly modifying her trade and substituting
fermented leaves for stercoral matter. The race would be the better for
the change and would become more numerous, since there would be plenty
of food in perfectly safe places.
If the Geotrupes does nothing of the kind, if it has never even
attempted to do so, apart from my artificial methods of rearing, it is
because the regimen is not determined merely by the appetites of the
consumers. Economic laws regulate the diet and each species has its
portion, in order that nothing shall be left unused in the treasury of
unorganizable matter.
Let us consider a few examples. The Death’s-head Hawk-moth (Acherontia
atropos, Linn.) has the leaves of the potato for her caterpillar’s
portion. She is a foreigner, who seems to have come from America
together with her food-plant. I have tried to rear her caterpillar on
various plants belonging, like the potato, to the family of the
Solanaceæ. Henbane, datura and tobacco were obstinately refused,
despite the acute hunger displayed when the normal food was served.
The violent alkaloids with which these plants are saturated may perhaps
explain this refusal. We will therefore keep the true genus Solanum and
we will replace the too active poisons by solanin, which is not so
virulent. The leaves of the tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), the
egg-plant (S. melongena), the black-berried nightshade (S. nigrum), the
orange-berried nightshade (S. villosum), a native of New Zealand, and
the common bittersweet of our country-sides (S. dulcamara) are, on the
other hand, accepted with the same relish as the potato.
These contradictory results leave me perplexed. Since the caterpillar
of the Death’s-head Hawk-moth requires food flavoured with solanin, why
are certain species of the same genus Solanum gluttonously devoured and
others refused? Can it be because the dose of solanin is unequal, being
weaker here and more abundant there? Or are there other reasons? I am
utterly at a loss.
The magnificent caterpillar of the Spurge Hawk-moth, La Belle, as
Réaumur calls it, knows nothing of these inexplicable preferences. It
welcomes any species whose wounds exude the sap of the tithymals, the
white milky liquid with the fiery flavour. In my neighbourhood it is
often found on the tall spurge of these parts, Euphorbia characias; but
it is just as happy on smaller species, such as the narrow notch-leaved
spurge (Euphorbia serrata) and Gerard’s spurge (E. Gerardiana).
Under my bell-jars it thrives on the first spurge that comes to hand.
Anything except these caustic foods, which no other caterpillar would
accept, it abhors. It turns away in disdain from the insipid lettuce of
our gardens, from peppermint, from the Cruciferæ, rich in sulphurous
juices, the caustic ranunculus and other more or less highly flavoured
plants. It will have nothing but the spurge, whose milky sap would
corrode any gullet but its own. An insect that can feed with pleasure
on such acrid fare must obviously be predisposed that way.
For that matter, consumers devoted to pungent flavours are not scarce.
The grub of Brachycerus algirus is as fond of aioli as the Provençal
peasant; it thrives and grows fat in a clove of garlic, without other
nourishment.
What is more, I have found the larvæ of I know not what insect on Nux
vomica, the terrible poison with which our municipal authorities
flavour the sausages used for destroying Wolves and stray dogs. These
strychnine-eaters have certainly not accustomed themselves by degrees
to this terrible diet: they would perish at the first mouthful, if they
had not a specially constructed stomach at their service.
This exclusive taste for such or such a vegetable, sometimes harmless
and sometimes poisonous, has many exceptions. Some vegetarian insects
are omnivorous. The destructive Locust nibbles every green thing; our
common Grasshoppers eat the tips of any sort of grass without
distinction. Kept in a cage to divert the children, the Field Cricket
feasts on a leaf of lettuce or endive, new foodstuffs that help it to
forget the tough grasses of his meadows.
In April, on the green banks by the road-side, we meet with squads of
an ugly, fat, bronze-black creature, which, when we tease it, plays the
Tortoise, shrinking into a ball. It walks heavily on six feeble legs,
while the end of the intestine, becoming a supplementary foot, acts as
a lever and pushes it forward. It is the larva of a large black
Chrysomela (Timarcha tenebricosa, Fab.), an unpleasant Beetle which, in
self-defense, disgorges an orange spittle.
I amused myself last spring by following a flock of these larvæ to
their grazing-grounds. The favourite plant was one of the Rubiaceæ, the
cheese-rennet (Galium verum), in the stage of young shoots. Various
other plants were eaten no less readily on the way, including
especially Cichoriaceæ such as Pterotheca nemansensis, Chondrilla
juncea or gum-succory, and cut-leaved podospermum (P. laciniatum), and
Leguminosæ such as Medicago falcata, or yellow medick and Trifolium
repens, or white clover. The acrid flavours did not in the least
discourage the flock. A Gerard’s spurge was met with, trailing its
flower on the ground. A few larvæ stopped and nibbled the tender tops
as eagerly as the clover. In short, the fat crippled larva varies its
meal greatly.
Examples abound of insects equally omnivorous of vegetable substances;
there is no need to linger over them. Let us pass on to the exploiters
of woody materials. The larva of Ergates faber lives exclusively in
decayed pine-stumps; the hideous caterpillar of the Moth
inappropriately known as the Cossus eats into old willow-trees, in
company with the Ægosoma.
These two are specialists.
The lesser Capricorn, Cerambyx cerdo, entrusts her grubs to the
hawthorn, the sloe, the apricot-tree and the cherry-laurel, all of
which trees or shrubs belong to the family of the Rosaceæ. She varies
her domain a little, while remaining faithful to woody vegetation
characterized by a faint flavour of prussic acid.
The Zeuzera, or Leopard-moth, a large and beautiful white Moth with
blue spots, is more general. She is the scourge of most of the trees
and shrubs in my enclosure. I find her caterpillar chiefly in the
lilac-tree; also in the elm, the plant-tree, the quince, the
guelder-rose, the pear-tree and the chestnut. In these, always working
upwards, it bores itself straight galleries which turn a branch the
thickness of a good-sized bottle-neck into a fragile sheath soon broken
by the winter wind.
To return to the specialists: the Shagreen Saperda exploits the black
poplar and accepts nothing else, not even the white poplar; the Spotted
Saperda has the elm for its domain; the Scalary Saperda is faithful to
the dead cherry-tree. [71] The Great Capricorn lodges her grubs in the
oak, sometimes the English oak and sometimes the evergreen oak, or
ilex. This last Beetle, being easily reared with slices of pear for
food and sticks of wood in which to establish her family, lends herself
to an experiment of some interest.
I collect the eggs which the mother’s pointed, groping oviduct has
slipped into the irregular crevices of the bark. The number obtained
enables me to make a variety of tests. Will the new-born larvæ accept
the first wood that offers after they are hatched. That is the problem.
I select freshly-cut billets measuring two or three fingers’-breadths
in diameter. They include the ilex, elm, lime, robinia, cherry, willow,
elder, lilac, fig, laurel and pine. To avoid falls, which would confuse
the new-born grubs if they had to wander about in search of the spot at
which to bore, I do my best to imitate the natural conditions. The
mother Capricorn lodges her eggs, one at a time, here and there in the
fissures of the bark, fixing them with a thin varnish. I cannot gum the
eggs in this way: my glue would perhaps endanger the vitality of the
egg; but I can resort to the firm support of a furrow. With the point
of a penknife I make this furrow, that is to say, a tiny cleft into
which the egg sinks half-way. This precaution succeeds admirably.
In a few days the eggs hatch without falling off, each at the spot
decided by the point of my penknife. I watch in amazement the first
wriggles of the feeble little creature’s body, the first strokes of its
plane, as it attacks the thankless material, the bark and the wood,
still dragging its white egg-shell behind it. By the following day,
each grub has disappeared beneath a fine sawdust, the result of the
work accomplished. The mound is still very small, matching the weakness
of the excavator. Let us leave the grub at work. For a fortnight we see
the mound grow bigger and bigger, until it is almost the size of a
pinch of snuff. Then everything stops. The amount of sawdust does not
increase, except in the oak-billet.
This activity at the outset, which is everywhere the same, in media
differing so greatly in aroma and flavour, would lead us to suppose, at
first thoughts, that the young Cerambyx is endowed with a highly
complaisant stomach and can feed on the fig-tree, oozing with acrid
milk, the laurel, aromatic with essential oils, and the pine, saturated
with resin, as well as on the oak, seasoned with tannin. Reflection
persuades us that we are mistaken. The little creature is not engaged
in eating: it is toiling to make itself a deep lodging in which it can
feast in peace.
When examined through the lens, the sawdust confirms our theory: this
dust has not passed through the digestive canal; it has played no part
in feeding the grub. It is only so much meal, crumbled by the
mandibles, and nothing more.
When appetite has come and the requisite depth has been reached, the
grub at last begins to eat. If it finds the traditional food ready to
its teeth, the sap-wood of the oak, with its astringent flavour, it
gorges itself and proceeds to digest. If it finds nothing of the sort,
it abstains from eating. This is certainly the reason why the heap of
sawdust grows larger on the billet of oak but remains indefinitely
stationary on the others.
What do they do in their little galleries, these grubs subjected to a
strict fast in the absence of suitable victuals? In March, six months
after the hatching, I look into the matter. I split the billets. There
they are, the little grubs, no larger, but still lively, swaying their
heads to and fro if I disturb them. This persistence of life in such
puny creatures deprived of food rouses our astonishment. It reminds us
of the grubs of the Attelabus-beetle, which, subjected to the drought
of summer in their little kegs made of a strip of oak-leaf, cease
eating and slumber, half-dead, for four or five months, until the
autumn rains have softened their food.
When I myself produced rain, a thing not beyond my power, so far as the
needs of a grub are concerned, when I softened the rigid kegs and made
them edible by a brief immersion in water, the recluses used to return
to life, begin to eat again and continue their larval development
without further check. Similarly, after six months’ fasting in the
heart of inacceptable sticks, the Capricorn grubs would have recovered
their strength and activity if I had removed them and put before them a
freshly-cut billet of oak. I did not do it, so certain did the success
of the experiment appear.
I had other schemes in view. I wished to learn how long this arrested
life could be prolonged. A year after the hatching, I examined my
specimens again. This time I have gone too far. All the grubs are dead,
reduced to dark brown granules; only those in the oak are alive and
already well-grown. The experiment is conclusive; the Great Capricorn
has the oak for her domain; any other tree is fatal to her grub.
Let us recapitulate these details, to which it were easy to add
indefinitely. Among the vegetarian insects are some that are
omnivorous, by which we mean that they are able to feed on a great
variety of plants, but not on all indifferently: that goes without
saying. These consumers of miscellaneous foodstuffs are in the
minority. The others specialize, some more and others less strictly.
One guest at the great banquet of the animal world requires a vegetable
family, a group, a genus flavoured with certain alkaloids; another
needs a given plant, sometimes faintly and sometimes highly flavoured;
a third demands a seed, apart from which nothing is of use to it; and
others require their pod, bud, or blossom, their bark, root or bough
respectively. So it is with one and all. Each insect has its exclusive
tastes, narrowly limited, to the point of refusing the close equivalent
of the thing accepted.
Lest we lose our way in the inextricable throng at the entomological
banquet let us consider separately our two Capricorns, Cerambyx heros
and C. cerdo. No two creatures could be more alike than these two
long-horned Beetles; the lesser is the very picture of the greater. Let
us also consider the three Saperdæ mentioned above. They are the same
shape, as though they had been turned out of similar moulds, so much so
that we should confound them if differences of size and above all of
colour did not proclaim them to be of separate species.
The theorists tell us that our two Capricorns and their congeners
spring from a common stock, ramified in various directions by the
action of the centuries. In the same way, our three Saperdæ and the
others are variations of a primitive type. The ancestors of the
Capricorns, the Saperdæ and the Longicorns in general are in their turn
descended from a remote precursor, who herself was descended from etc.,
etc. One more plunge into the darkness of the past and we shall soon
reach the origins of the zoological series. What begins at all? The
Protozoon. How? With a drop of albumen. The whole succession of living
creatures has gradually proceeded from this first clot of protoplasm.
As an effort of the imagination, this is magnificent. But the
observable facts, which alone are worthy of admission to the stern
records of science, the facts corroborated by experiment, cannot keep
pace with the Protozoon. They tell us that, as food is the primordial
factor of life, digestive capacities should be handed down by atavistic
inheritance even more than are the length of the antennæ, the colour of
the wing-cases and other details of quite secondary importance. To
bring about the present state of affairs, in which the diet is so
varied, the precursors must have eaten a little of everything. They
ought to have bequeathed to their descendants an omnivorous regimen,
which is a notable cause of prosperity.
A common origin would inevitably lead to a common diet. Instead of
this, what do we see? Each species has its narrowly limited tastes,
which have no reference to the tastes of the cognate species. If they
are related through a common ancestry, it is absolutely impossible to
understand why, of our two Capricorns, one is allotted the oak and the
other the hawthorn and the cherry-laurel; why, of our three Saperdæ,
the first demands the black poplar, the second the elm and the third
the dead cherry-tree. This gastric independence loudly proclaims
independence of origin. And simple common sense, not always welcome to
the adventurous theorists, is of the same opinion.
CHAPTER XI
THE DWARFS
A Provençal proverb says:
“Chasque toupin trobo sa cubercello;
Chasque badan, sa badarello.”
It is true; every pot finds its lid, every Jack his Jill. The
hunchbacked, the blind, the bandy-legged, the physically or morally
deformed: one and all have their attractions which render them
acceptable in certain eyes.
Insects too, no less than men and stew-pans, always find their natural
complement, though it mate the faultless with the faulty. Of this
Minotaurus Typhœus furnishes a splendid example. The hazards of
excavation present me with a curious couple, keeping house at the
bottom of a burrow. The female calls for no special remark: she is just
a handsome matron. But the male! What a sorry creature, what an
abortion! The middle point of his trident is reduced to a mere spiked
granule; those at the side come just level with the eyes, whereas in
normal subjects they reach the extreme point of the head. I measure the
little beggar. His length is twelve millimetres [72] instead of
eighteen, [73] the ordinary size. According to these figures, the dwarf
is barely a quarter of the usual bulk.
In an earlier chapter of the present volume, I mentioned a magnificent
male Minotaur who was obstinately refused by the consort whom my
experiments had given him. The handsome horn-bearer did not leave the
burrow; the other, despite my frequent interventions to restore harmony
in the household, deserted her home nightly and sought to set up house
elsewhere. I had to give her another partner; the one that I had thrust
upon her did not suit her. If the male endowed with a generous stature
and trident is often refused, how did the miserable specimen under
consideration win the affections of his powerful mate? The unequal
associations are doubtless to be explained among the Dung-beetles as
among ourselves: love is blind.
Would this ill-assorted pair have bred? And would one part of the
family have inherited the noble dimensions of the mother and the other
the stunted dimensions of the father? Not possessing, at the moment, a
suitable apparatus, that is to say, a tall column of earth held between
four planks, I lodged my Beetles in the longest test-tube among my
entomological glass-ware, with moist sand and victuals at their
disposal.
At first, all went according to rule, the mother digging and the father
clearing away the rubbish. A few droppings were stored; then, on
reaching the bottom of the test-tube, the couple pined away and died.
The layer of sand was not deep enough. Before piling the food-sausage
on top of an egg, the pair needed a shaft at least forty inches in
depth, whereas they had only some eighteen inches to dig in.
This failure did not put an end to my list of questions. Where did that
pigmy spring from? Was he the outcome of a special predisposition,
transmitted by heredity? Or was he descended from another dwarf, who
himself proceeded from a similar abortion? Was his deficiency merely an
accident, which had nothing to do with heredity, an individual
littleness not transmissible from father to son? I incline to the
theory of an accident. But what sort of accident? I can think of only
one liable to diminish the size without injuring the type: I mean, a
lack of sufficient food.
We argue thus: animals virtually take shape in a mould whose capacity
may be extended in proportion to the amount of molten substance which
the crucible pours into it. If this mould receives only the strictly
necessary amount, the result is a dwarf. Anything beneath this minimum
means death by starvation; anything above it, in doses which increase
but are soon limited, means a prosperous life and a normal or slightly
larger size. The bulk is decided by plus or minus quantities of food.
If logic be not a vain delusion, it is therefore possible to obtain
dwarfs at will. All that we need do is to diminish the provisions to
the lowest limits compatible with the maintenance of life. On the other
hand, we cannot hope to make giants by increasing the ration, for a
moment comes when the stomach refuses any excess of food. Natural
necessities may be likened to a series of rungs of which the one at the
top cannot be passed, while it is quite practicable to stand higher or
lower on those near the bottom.
First of all we must discover the regular ration. The majority of
insects have none. The larva grows up amidst an indeterminate supply of
victuals; it eats as it pleases and as much as it pleases, with no
other check than its appetite. Others, those most richly endowed in
maternal qualities such as the Dung-beetles and the Bees and Wasps,
prepare definite rations of preserved food, neither too large nor too
small. The Bee stores up in receptacles of clay, cement, resin, cotton
or leaf-cuttings just the right amount of honey for a larva’s welfare;
and, as she knows the sex of the future insects, she puts a little more
at the service of the grubs that are to become females and will be
slightly larger and a little less at the service of the grubs that are
to become males and therefore will be smaller. In like manner, the
Hunting Wasps dole out their game according to the sex of the
nurslings.
It is now a long time since I did my utmost to upset the mother’s wise
previsions by taking food from the wealthy grubs to increase the store
of the poor. In this way I obtained some slight modifications of size,
to which the terms giant and dwarf could not, however, be applied;
still less did I succeed in changing the sex, whose determination does
not in any way depend upon the quantity of food supplied. The Bees and
Wasps are not suited to my present purpose. Their grubs are too
delicately constituted. What I want is sturdy stomachs capable of
enduring severe ordeals. I shall find them in the Dung-beetles, notably
in the Sacred Beetle, whose natural portliness will facilitate our
appreciation of any change of bulk.
The big pill-roller calculates the food of her larvæ precisely: each
grub has its loaf, kneaded into the shape of a pear. All these loaves
are not strictly equal; some are larger and some smaller, but the
difference is only minute. Perhaps these slight inequalities are
connected with the sex of the nurslings, as among the Bees and Wasps;
the females would receive the larger and the males the smaller rations.
I did not take any steps to verify this theory. No matter: the fact
remains that the Sacred Beetle’s pear is, in the mother’s opinion, a
convenient individual ration. As for me, I can, if I please, alter the
size of the loaf, increasing or decreasing it at will. Let us first
consider the decrease.
In May, I procure four recent pears, containing the egg in the chamber
of the terminal nipple. By making an equatorial section, I cut off the
hinder half, in the shape of a large spherical cap; the other half,
surmounted by its neck, I retain; and I place the four egg-bearing
portions in as many small jars, in which there is no danger of either
desiccation or excessive damp.
With these provisions decreased by half, development takes place as
usual; then two of the grubs die, apparently the victims of defective
hygiene: my jars are not equal to the burrows, with their pleasant
moisture. The two others are still in good condition, ever ready to
plug with dung the window which I cut through the wall of the cell when
I wish to inspect them. At the end of the active period, I find them
remarkably small in comparison with those of their fellows who have
been left in possession of the whole pear. The effect of insufficient
food is already manifest. What will it be in the perfect insect?
In September there emerge from the shells adults such as my hunts in
the meadows never yielded, dwarfs, hardly larger than a thumbnail, but
correctly shaped in every other respect.
Let me quote some exact figures. Each of them measures nineteen
millimetres [74] from the edge of the clypeus to the tip of the
abdomen. The smallest specimen in my boxes, as the freedom of the
fields made him, measures twenty-six. [75] The products of my
experiments, fed upon half rations, are therefore only half the bulk of
the normal Beetle chosen from among the smallest. This is also
approximately the ratio between the full and the reduced diet. The
extensible mould of the organism has reproduced the proportion of the
substance at its disposal.
My intervention has just created dwarfs; treatment by starvation has
given me abortions. I am not excessively proud of it, though I am glad
to have learned by experiment that dwarfishness, at all events in the
insects, is not a matter of predisposition and heredity but a mere
accident caused by deficient nourishment.
What then had happened to the little Minotaur who suggested these
experiments in starvation? Assuredly a deficiency of food. Though
expert in the art of rationing, the mother was unable to complete the
sausage over the egg, perhaps because the materials were lacking, or
because some inopportune incident interrupted her work; and the grub,
scantily fed, though strong enough to withstand a not too rigorous
diet, was unable to acquire the wherewithal to provide the adult with
the amount of substance needed for the normal size. This seems to be
the whole secret of the tiny Minotaur. He was a child of poverty.
While privation reduces the size, it does not follow that unlimited
abundance is able to increase it very notably. In vain do I provide the
grubs of the Sacred Beetle with an extra allowance of food that doubles
or trebles the ration supplied by the mother. My boarders do not attain
a growth worth mentioning. As they leave the maternal pears, so do they
leave the plentiful messes which my spatula has mixed for them. And
this must be so: the appetite has its limits, which, once reached,
leave the consumer indifferent to the luxuries of the table. It is not
in our power to make giants by means of an excess of food. When the
grub has gorged to the required degree, it ceases to eat.
There are nevertheless giants among the Sacred Beetles. I have some
that came from Ajaccio and Algeria and measure thirty-four millimetres
[76] in length. By comparing this figure with those already given, we
see that, if the size of the dwarfs obtained by fasting is represented
by the figure 1, that of the Sacred Beetle of the Sérignan district is
expressed by 2 and that of the Corsican and African Beetles by 5.
To produce these latter, these giants, it is evident that a more
generous diet is needed. Whence comes this increase of appetite? We
whet ours with condiments. The insect may well have condiments of its
own, for instance, as regards the Sacred Beetle, the pepper of the
sea-breezes and the mustard of a generous sun. Such, it seems to me,
are the causes which augment the dimensions of the African Scarabæus
and reduce those of his Sérignan kinsman. As I have not these two
appetizers, the sea and the sun, at my disposal, I give up the idea of
making giants by an excess of victuals.
Let us now try the larvæ which, not being rationed by the mother, have
unlimited abundance at their disposal. Among them are the larvæ of
Cetonia floricola, Herbst, living in heaps of decomposing leaves. I
shall certainly never obtain giants from these by resorting to the
artifice of a copious diet! In a corner of my garden they swarm in a
heap of rotten leaves, where they find the wherewithal to satisfy their
gluttonous appetites to the full, without having to hunt for it; and
yet I never find an adult whose dimensions are ever so little
exaggerated. To make him exceed the usual proportions it is probable
that better climatic conditions are necessary, as in the case of the
Sacred Beetle, conditions of which I know nothing and which, moreover,
I should be unable to realize. Only one experiment lies within my
power, that of starvation.
At the beginning of April, I take three batches of larvæ of Cetonia
floricola chosen from among those most fully developed and therefore
liable to undergo their transformation during the course of the summer.
At this April season the great hunger sets in which doubles the size of
the grub and amasses the reserves needed for the elaboration of the
adult. The three batches are installed in large tin boxes, carefully
closed, in which there is no danger of too rapid desiccation.
The first batch consists of twelve grubs, which are given an abundance
of food, renewed as the need arises. My prisoners could not be better
off in the heap of leaf-mould, their favourite resort.
Side by side with this gastric paradise, a second tin, a very inferno
of starvation, receives a dozen larvæ kept absolutely without food. It
is furnished—as, for that matter, are the others—with a litter of
droppings, enabling the famished creatures to wander about or bury
themselves at will.
Lastly, the third batch, likewise twelve in number, receives from time
to time a scanty pinch of rotten leaves, enough at most to beguile
their mandibles for a moment.
Three or four months go by and, when the torrid heats of July have
come, the first tin gives me the perfect insect. Its development has
been accomplished without a check: the twelve grubs are succeeded by
twelve magnificent Cetoniæ, resembling at all points those who sip and
slumber in the roses when the spring comes. This result convinces me
that the defects attaching to rearing in confinement have nothing to do
with what remains to be told.
The second tin, in which strict abstinence is enforced, provides me
with two chrysalids, whose diminished size indicates the presence of
dwarfs. I wait until the middle of September to open these caskets,
which remained closed when those in the first tin burst, two months
ago. Their persistent refusal to split open is explained: each of them
contains nothing but a dead larva. Absolute starvation was too much for
the grubs’ endurance. Of the twelve kept without food, ten shrivelled
up and eventually died; only two managed to wrap themselves in a shell,
by gluing the droppings round about in the usual way. This was their
last effort. The two grubs, incapable of performing the consummate
labour of the nymphosis, perished in their turn.
Lastly, in the third tin, where victuals were very sparingly provided,
eleven grubs out of twelve died, worn out with privation. One only has
enclosed itself in a cocoon, which is correctly made but very much
reduced in size. If there is a living insect within, it can only be a
dwarf. In the middle of September, I open the cabin myself, for there
is nothing yet, at this late period, to announce an impending natural
fracture.
The contents fill me with delight. They consist of a Cetonia, alive and
kicking, all brilliant with metallic gleams and streaked with a few
white stripes, like those of the species who have developed freely in
the great heap of earth-mould. The shape and costume are not altered in
any respect. As for size, that is another matter. I have before my eyes
a pigmy, a little gem more exquisite than any collector ever found on
the blossoming hawthorns. From the edge of the clypeus to the tips of
the wing-cases this creature of my artificial devices measures thirteen
millimetres, [77] no more. The insect would have measured twenty
millimetres [78] if the grub had been properly fed, far away from my
famine-stricken tins. From these figures we deduce that the dwarf’s
bulk is about one-fourth of what it would have become normally, without
my interference.
Of the twenty-four larvæ subjected, during three or four months, some
to an absolute fast and others to a diet of meagre mouthfuls
administered at long intervals, one only reached the adult form. The
bad effects of abstinence are far-reaching and the pigmy still feels
them. Though the season when the caskets should have split had long
gone by, he had made no attempt to free himself. Perhaps he had not the
necessary strength. I myself had to break open the cell.
Now that he is free and revelling in the light, he kicks and struggles
and starts running, if I tease him at all; but he prefers to rest. One
would think that he was overwhelmed by an insurmountable lassitude. I
know how gluttonously the Cetoniæ attack fruit at this warm season,
gorging themselves upon the sweet pulp. I give my dwarf a piece of
juicy fig. He does not touch it, preferring to doze. Is it not yet time
for him to eat, after his forcible liberation? Was the recluse intended
to spend the winter in his shell before tasting the joys but also
risking the dangers of the outer world? It may be so.
At any rate this curious little creature, the small Cetonia, reduced to
one-fourth of the regulation size, repeats what the Sacred Beetle but
now taught us in a less conclusive fashion, that, among the insects and
very likely elsewhere, dwarfishness is the result of incomplete
nutrition and not in any way the effect of predisposition.
Let us suppose an impossible case, or at least one extremely difficult
to realize; let us imagine that, having obtained by starvation a few
couples of Cetoniæ, we were able to keep them alive under favourable
conditions. Would they found a family? And what would their offspring
be like? The insect, in all probability, would not reply to our
question, even though entreated by long perseverance; but the plant
answers us readily.
On the paths in my two acres of pebbles, at spots where a little
moisture lingers, there grows in April a familiar plant, the whitlow
grass (Draba verna, Lin.). There is but little nourishment in this
ungrateful trodden soil, hard with gravel, and the whitlow grass may be
regarded as the equivalent of my famished Cetoniæ. From a flat pattern
of sickly leaves rises a single stem, no thicker than a hair, barely an
inch in height and with few ramifications or none, which nevertheless
ripens its silicles, often reduced to one alone. Here, in short, I have
a little garden of dwarf plants, the children of dearth. My experiments
in starvation were far from obtaining such results with the Sacred
Beetle and the Cetonia.
I collect the seeds from the heads of the sickliest of these plants and
sow them in good soil. Next spring, the dwarfishness disappears at
once; the direct descendants of the abortive plants produce ample
radiating patterns, multiple stalks reaching to a height of four inches
or more and numerous ramifications, rich in silicles. The normal
condition has returned.
If they had had enough energy to procreate their species, my dwarf
insects, resulting from my artifices or from a casual concourse of
enfeebling circumstances, would do as much. They would repeat what the
whitlow grass has told us: that dwarfishness is an accident which
heredity does not hand down, any more than it hands down knock-knees,
or bow-legs, or the hunchback’s hump or the stump of the one-armed
cripple.
CHAPTER XII
SOME ANOMALIES
The anomalous is that which forms an exception to the rule, which again
is based upon an aggregate of concordant facts. An insect has six legs,
each ending in a finger. That is the rule. Why six legs and not some
other number? Why one finger and not several? Such questions are so
obviously inane that they do not even occur to our minds. The rule
exists because it does exist; we note it and that is all. We remain in
blissful ignorance of the reason for its existence.
Anomalies, on the other hand, make us uncomfortable and upset all our
ideas. Why should there be exceptions, irregularities, contradictions
of the letter of the law? Does the sign-manual of disorder leave its
imprint here and there? Is the shriek of crazy discord heard amid the
general harmony? This is a weighty question; and we should do well to
look into it a little, though we have little hope of ever solving the
problem.
Let us, to begin with, mention a few of these infractions of the rule.
Among the strangest that my chance discoveries have submitted to my
scrutiny is that of the larva of the Geotrupes. When I made its
acquaintance for the first time, the crippled grub had attained very
nearly its full growth. One might reasonably ask one’s self whether
certain hardships endured during its lifetime had not gradually brought
about the weakness of the hind-legs and their abnormal position;
whether, at all events, the curious deformity might not be explained by
the grub’s cramped situation in a narrow corridor in the heart of its
food-supply.
Today I am better-informed. The Geotrupes’ larva does not gradually
become lame through straining itself; it is born crippled, there is no
doubt of that. I observe its hatching. I watch the new-born grub
through my magnifying-glass as it leaves the egg. The hind-legs which
the adult Beetle uses as powerful squeezers for pressing the material
which he has gathered and making it into sausages are for the moment
reduced to the sorriest of appendages, mere useless counterfeits. They
lie withered against the larva’s back. Bent into a hook, their
extremities avoid the ground and turn in towards the insect’s back,
without furnishing the least support for standing. They are not legs
but uncertain attempts, awkward experiments.
The fore-legs, though well-shaped, are of insignificant dimensions. The
tiny creature keeps them tucked away under the front of its body, where
they serve to hold in position the morsel at which it is nibbling. The
middle pair, on the contrary, are long and powerful and well in
evidence. Standing up like two stout crutches, they lend stability to
the fat, curved paunch, which has a tendency to capsize. When seen from
behind, the grub gives the impression of being the most whimsical
creature on earth. It is just a pot-belly mounted on a pair of stilts.
What is the object of this curious organization? One can understand the
grotesque hump worn by the grub of the Onthophagus, the sugar-loaf
knapsack whose weight is constantly overturning the little creature
when it tries to change its position. This hump is a storehouse of
cement for the construction of the cabin in which the transformation is
to take place. But we cannot understand the two withered, misshapen
legs of the Geotrupes’ grub, which, one would think, would have been
very useful if they had grown into serviceable grappling-irons. The
grub shifts its position; it climbs up and down inside its tall column
of victuals; it moves about in quest of morsels to suit it. Those two
neglected supports would make the climbing easier if they were in good
condition.
On the other hand, the grub of the Sacred Beetle, confined in a narrow
recess, has hardly any need of locomotion. A simple movement of the
hinder-part brings within the reach of its mandibles a fresh layer of
the victuals to be consumed. No matter: it is blessed with six sound,
well-turned legs. The cripple moves to and fro, the lusty athlete is
stationary; the limping grub takes its walks abroad, the nimble one
sits still. There is no satisfactory way of explaining this paradox.
In the adult form, the Sacred Beetle and his kinsfolk, the Half-spotted
Scarab, [79] the broad-necked Scarab [80] and the Pock-marked Scarab
[81]—the only three that I know—are likewise atrophied: all of them
lack the tarsi of the fore-legs. These four witnesses prove to us that
this singular mutilation is common to the whole group.
An absurd system of nomenclature has seen fit, in its blindness, to
substitute for the ancient and venerable term of Scarabæus that of
Ateuchus, meaning weaponless. The inventor of the name was none too
well-inspired: there are plenty of other Dung-beetles that have no
horny armour, such as the Gymnopleuri, [82] who are so closely allied
to the Scarabæi. Since his intention was to designate the genus by
calling attention to a characteristic peculiarity, he should have
coined a word meaning, “deprived of tarsi on the fore-legs.” Only the
Sacred Beetle and his kinsfolk, in the whole of the insect-world, could
rightly bear that name. This never occurred to the nomenclator; this
important detail was apparently unknown to him. He saw the grain of
sand and did not notice the mountain: a defect not uncommon among the
forgers of names.
For what reasons are the Scarabs’ fore-legs bereft of that one finger,
the five-jointed tarsus, which in itself represents the insect’s hand?
Why a stump, a docked limb, instead of a fingered extremity, as is the
rule every otherwise? One reply suggests itself which at first seems
rather plausible. Those zealous pill-rollers push their load backwards,
with their head down and their hinder-part in the air; they support
themselves on the tips of their fore-legs. The whole effort of the
transportation is brought to bear on the extremities of these two
levers, which are in constant contact with the rough ground.
A delicate finger, liable to be sprained under such conditions, would
be a hindrance, wherefore the pill-maker decided to do without it. How
and when was the mutilation effected? Does it occur nowadays, as a
workshop accident, during the actual work? No, for you never see a
Scarab furnished with tarsi to his fore-legs, however new he may be at
his trade; no, for the nymph, lying perfectly at rest in its shell, has
fingerless fore-arms like the adult.
The mutilation dates farther back. Suppose we admit that, in the dim
and distant ages, a Scarab, owing to some mishap, lost those two
inconvenient and almost superfluous fingers. Finding himself all the
better for it, he transmitted the fortunate defect to his race by way
of an ancestral legacy. Since then, the Scarabs form an exception to
the rule that fore-legs have digits like the rest.
This would be an attractive explanation, but there are serious
difficulties in the way. We ask ourselves by what curious freak the
organism can have elaborated in days long past portions destined to
disappear afterwards as too cumbrous. Can the plan of the animal frame
be devoid of logic, of foresight? Does it design the structure blindly,
at the hazard of conflicting circumstances?
Away with such foolishness! No, the Scarab did not at one time have the
tarsi which he lacks to-day; no, he did not lose them as the result of
being harnessed upside down when rolling his pill. He is now what he
always was. Who says so? Unimpeachable witnesses: the Gymnopleurus and
the Sisyphus, [83] themselves enthusiastic pill-rollers. Like the
Scarab, they push them backwards, head down; like the Scarab, they
support themselves, during their arduous task, on the tips of their
fore-legs; and those legs, notwithstanding their contact with the rough
ground, are as perfectly fingered as the others: they possess the
delicate tarsi which the Scarab is denied. Then why should the latter
prove an exception to what in the others is the rule? How gladly would
I welcome a word from the discerning person who could answer my humble
question!
My satisfaction would be equally great if I knew why the Iris-weevil’s
[84] tarsus has a single nail, whereas the other insects have two, set
side by side and bent into a hook. Why was one of these two little
claws suppressed? Would it not have been useful to the insect? One
would think so. The little Weevil thus mutilated is a climber; she
clambers up the smooth stems of the iris; she explores the flowers,
visiting the lower surface of the petals as well as the upper; she
walks upside down on the slippery pods. An extra hook would do much to
ensure her steadiness; yet the thoughtless Weevil deprives herself of
it, though by law she has a right to the double claw invariably wielded
by the others, even in her own long-nosed clan. What then is the secret
of the little Iris-weevil’s missing finger-nail?
A tiny claw the less, though a serious business where matters of
principle are concerned, is after all a detail of no great material
value; one needs a lens to perceive the irregularity. But here is
something that the eye can see without the aid of the magnifying-glass.
A Locust from the green slopes of the Alps, Pezzotettyx pedestris, [85]
who dwells on the higher ridges of Mont Ventoux, [86] renounces her
right to wings of any kind; she reaches the adult stage while
preserving the larval formation. The approach of the wedding-day makes
her a little handsomer, adds a touch of coral-red to her sturdy thighs
and of sky-blue to her shanks; but there all progress stops. She
becomes ripe for marriage and maternity without acquiring the power of
flying which the other Acridians possess in addition to that of
leaping.
Among the hoppers, all endowed with wings and wing-cases, she remains a
clumsy pedestrian, as her Latin affix, pedestris, informs us.
Nevertheless, the cripple bears on her shoulders a pair of skimpy
sheaths which contain the organs of flight, incapable of unfolding. By
what curious evolutionary whim is the pretty Locust with the azure legs
deprived of the wings and wing-cases of which she carries the germs in
two miserable little bundles? She is promised the gift of flight and
does not receive it. For no appreciable reason, the wheels of the
animal mechanism are arrested.
Stranger still is the case of the Psyches, whose females, unable to
become the Moths promised in their early stages, remain caterpillars,
or rather change into wallets stuffed with eggs. Wings with gorgeous
scales, the supreme prerogative of Moth and Butterfly, are denied them.
The males alone achieve the promised shape; they turn into plumed
dandies, clad in black velvet, and are excellent flyers. Why does
one—and that one the more important—of the sexes remain a wretched
little sausage, while the other is made glorious by the metamorphosis?
And now what are we to say of the next, Necydalis major, a denizen of
the poplar and the willow in his larval state? He is a Longicorn,
fairly imposing in size as compared with Cerambyx cerdo, the little
Capricorn of the hawthorn. When one is a Beetle—and that he assuredly
is—one dons wing-cases which form a sheath, enclosing the body and
protecting the delicate wings and the soft and vulnerable abdomen. The
Necydalis laughs at rules. He wears on his shoulders, by way of
wing-cases, two short pieces which make him an inadequate jacket. It
really looks as though there were not sufficient stuff to lengthen out
the coat and give it a pair of tails capable of covering that which
ought to be covered.
Beyond it stretch, entirely unprotected, two large wings reaching to
the tip of the abdomen. At first sight, you would think that you had
before your eyes some sort of huge, fantastic Wasp. Why, in an actual
Beetle, this niggardly provision of wing-cases? Can the material have
run short? Was the cost of prolonging the protective sheath begun at
the shoulders too great? We stand amazed at such meanness.
What again shall we say of this other Beetle, Myodites subdipterus? Her
grub establishes itself, I know not how, in the cells of Halictus zebra
[87] and battens on the nymph that owns the premises. The adult
frequents in summer the prickly heads of the field eringo. To look at
her, you would take her for a Dipteron, for a Fly, because of her two
big wings uncovered by wing-cases. Examine her more closely and you
will see that she carries on her shoulders two small scales, all that
remains of the suppressed wing-cases. She is yet another who has not
known how or rather has not been able to complete the parts of which
she carries these absurd rudiments.
An entire group, one of the most numerous among the Beetles, that of
the Staphylini, or Rove-beetles, cuts down its wing-cases to a third or
a quarter of the normal dimensions. With excessive economy, the insect
with the long, wriggling belly makes itself unsightly and goes too
scantily clad.
I might continue for a long time to enumerate the deformed, the
irregular, the exceptional; the “whys” would follow close upon one
another and no reply would be forthcoming. Animals are uncommunicative;
plants, when cunningly entreated, lend themselves better to enquiry.
Let us consult them on this problem of anomalies; perhaps they will
tell us something.
The rose-tree sets us this puzzle:
“We are five brothers; two of us have beards, two have none and the
fifth has half a beard.”
The case has even been stated in a Latin couplet:
Quinque sumus fratres: units barbatus et alter;
Imberbesque duo; sum semiberbis ego.
Who are the five brothers? None other than the five lobes of the rose’s
calyx, the five sepals. Let us examine them one by one. We shall find
two of them furnished on both edges with leafy or beard-like
appendages, which sometimes revert to the original form and expand into
follicles similar to those of the leaves proper. Botany in fact teacher
us that a sepal is a modified leaf. These are the two brothers with
beards.
We shall see two others totally devoid of appendages on either side.
These are the two brothers without beards. Lastly, the fifth will show
us one bare and one bearded surface. This one represents the brother
with half a beard.
These are not casual variations, differing from flower to flower; all
the roses present the same arrangement, all have their sepals divided
into three classes in the matter of beards. It is a fixed rule,
resulting from a law which governs floral architecture, even as the art
of a Vitruvius [88] governs our buildings. This law, so elegant in its
simplicity, is thus stated in botany: in the quinary order, the most
important order of the vegetable world, the flower groups the five
portions of a whorl at intervals upon a close spiral, almost equivalent
to the circumference of a circle; and this arrangement is so contrived
that two turns of the spiral contain the series of five parts.
Having said this, it is easy to construct the plan of the rose, in so
far as concerns the calyx. Divide a circumference into five equal
parts. At the first dividing-point, place a sepal. Where shall we put
the second? It must not be at the second dividing-point, for then the
set of five pieces would fill the circumference in a single revolution,
instead of in two. We shall place it at the third point and continue in
like fashion, each time missing one division. This mode of progress is
the only one that brings us back to the starting-point after two turns
of the spiral.
Let us now give the sepals a base wide enough to provide a tightly
closed containing wall. We shall see that the parts on sections 1 and 3
are completely outside the spiral; that the parts on sections 2 and 4
have their two edges fitting under the adjoining sepals; and that,
lastly, the part on section 5 has one edge covered and one free. On the
other hand, it is manifest that, hampered in their expansion by the
petal placed over them, the edges caught under the others cannot send
forth their delicate appendages. Hence we have the two bearded sepals
at points 1 and 3, the two beardless sepals at points 2 and 4 and the
half-bearded sepal at point 5.
This explains the riddle of the rose. The disparity of the five pieces
of the calyx, apparently an irrational structure, a capricious anomaly,
is really the corollary of a mathematical law, the natural consequence
of an immanent algebraical relation. Disorder is eloquent of order;
irregularity bears evidence of a ruling principle.
Let us continue our excursion into the realm of the plants. The quinary
order allots to the flower five petals arranged in a whorl of perfect
accuracy. Well, a good many corollas depart from the normal grouping,
as instance the labiate and the personate corollas. In the former, five
lobes compose the limb expanding at the end of a tubular portion and
represent the five regulation petals. They are arranged in two
wide-open lips, one pointing upwards and one downwards. The upper lip
has two lobes, the lower three.
The personate corolla likewise is divided into two lips, the upper
having two lobes, the lower three; only, the latter is expanded into an
arch that closes the entrance to the flower. A pressure of the fingers
on the sides opens the two lips, which close again as soon as the
pressure ceases. Hence a certain resemblance to the jaws—the mufle or
gueule—of an animal, a resemblance which has earned for the plant in
which this formation is most clearly seen, the name of Snapdragon,
muflier or gueule-de-loup. A certain analogy has also been drawn
between the appearance of the two thick lips of the snapdragon and the
exaggerated features of the masks, or personæ, with which the actors in
the ancient theatres used to cover their faces to represent the
characters whom they were playing. Hence the expression “personate
corolla.”
The anomaly of the two-lipped corolla entails modifications in the
stamens, which have to adapt themselves to the exigencies of the space
enclosed, which is narrower at one point and roomier at another. Of the
five stamens, one is suppressed, while often leaving a vestige at its
base, as a certificate that it was once there. The four others are
grouped into two pairs of unequal length, with a tendency to the
suppression of the lesser pair.
The sage achieves this suppression. It has only two stamens, those of
the longer pair. Moreover, on each of the staminal filaments it
preserves only half an anther. According to the rule in the vast
majority of cases, an anther consists of two compartments, placed back
to back and separated by a slender partition, known as the connective.
The sage exaggerates the size of this connective and makes of it the
beam of a balance placed crosswise on the filament. At the end of one
arm of this beam is the half of an anther, that is to say, a
pollen-sac; at the other end is nothing. The whole of the staminal
verticil, all save that which is strictly necessary, is sacrificed to
the beautiful strangeness of the corolla.
Now why do the Labiatæ, the Personatæ and other vegetable orders
present these anomalies which completely disarrange the regular
structure of the flower? Let us in this connection venture upon an
architectural comparison. The first men who ventured to balance heavy
hewn stones over empty space, thereby deserving the proud title of
pontifex, or bridge-builder, took as the pattern of their fabric the
semicircular arch, which rests the thrust of the load on uniform
voussoirs. The result is strong and majestic, but also monotonous and
lacking in elegance.
Next came the pointed arch, which opposes two arcs described from
different centres. With the new type, soaring curves, slender ribs and
magnificent superstructures are possible. Variety, inexhaustible in its
graceful combinations, replaces monotony.
Well, the regular corolla is, so to speak, the semicircular arch of the
flower. Whether campanulate, rotate, urceolate, stellate, or of any
other shape, it is always a grouping of similar parts around a
circumference. The irregular corolla is the ogive, with its wonderful
audacities; it lends to the poetry of the flower the admired disorder
of all true poetry. The thick-lipped mask of the snapdragon, the gaping
jaws of the sage are every whit as effective as the rosette of the
hawthorn or the sloe. They are so many chromatic notes added to the
gamut, so many charming variations upon one glorious theme, so many
discords that enhance the value of the harmonies. The floral symphony
gains if interrupted by occasional solos.
The Pedestrian Locust, hopping among the saxifrage amid the lofty
summits of the hills, explains his incapacity to fly by reasons of a
like order; so does the Staphylinus his skimpy jacket, the Necydalis
his short coat, the Myodites her Fly-like aspect. Each after his
fashion varies the monotony of the general theme; each strikes a
special note in the universal concert. It is not so easy to see why the
Scarab abandons his fore-tarsi, why the Iris-beetle has only one claw
to her fingers, why the Geotrupes-grub is born mutilated. To what are
these minute aberrations due? Before answering, let us once again take
counsel with the plant.
One of the inmates of our hothouses is the Alstrœmeria pelegrina, or
Inca lily, a native of Peru. This curious plant sets us a puzzling
problem. At the first glance, its leaves, shaped more or less like
those of the willow, offer nothing that deserves attentive examination;
but look at them more closely. The leaf-stalk, flattened into a ribbon
of some length, is tightly twisted upon itself; and the twist is
repeated on every one of the leaves. From one end of the plant to the
other we find this clearly-marked torsion.
Delicately, with the tips of our fingers, let us re-establish the
natural order of affairs and spread out flat the ribbon of the twisted
leaf-stalk. A surprise awaits us. The untwisted ribbon, replaced in its
normal position, is upside down; it shows on the top what ought to be
underneath, that is to say, the pale surface, rich in stomata and
deeply veined; it shows underneath what ought to be on top, that is to
say, the green, smooth surface, as is the rule with all other plants.
In short, the Inca lily, when we forcibly restore the natural
arrangement by undoing its torsions, has its leaves upside down. What
was made for the shadow faces the light, what was made for the light
faces the shadow. In this contrary arrangement, the functions of the
leaves become impossible; and so the plant, to correct this defective
order, twists the necks of all its leaves by the spiral deformation of
the leaf-stalks.
The rays of the sun provoke this reversal. If we intervene with our
artificial devices, they may undo what they did at first. With the aid
of a light prop and a few ligatures, I bend a shoot of the lily and fix
it head downwards. As a result of exposure to the sun, the leaf-stalks
in a few days’ time untwist themselves and become flat ribbons, which
turn their smooth, green sides towards the light and their pale, veined
surface towards the shade. The torsion has disappeared, the normal
direction of the leaves is restored, but the plant is upside down.
In the case of the Inca lily, with its leaves set the wrong way round
on the stem, are we confronted with a blunder which the plant, aided by
the sun, does its best to correct by twisting its leaf-stalks? Are
there such things as organic frivolity, mistakes, the signature of
disorder? Is it not rather our ignorance of cause and effect which
regards as erroneous what is actually correct? If our knowledge were
greater, how many discordant notes would become harmonious! And so the
wisest course is to doubt.
Of all the signs which we employ in writing, the one most nearly
resembling the idea which it expresses is the note of interrogation. At
the bottom, a round speck: the ball of the world. Above it, twisted
into a great crozier, is the lituus of antiquity, the augur’s wand
interrogating the unknown. I like to regard this sign as the emblem of
science in perpetual colloquy with the how and why of things.
Now, high as it may rise to obtain a better view, this questioning
staff is surrounded by a narrow and obscure horizon, which future
investigations will replace by other horizons more remote and no less
obscure. Beyond all these horizons, laboriously torn asunder, one by
one, by the progress of knowledge, beyond all this obscurity, what is
there? Assuredly, the broad light of day, the wherefore of the why, the
reason of reasons, in short the great x of the world’s equation. So
says our questioning instinct, ever dissatisfied, never weary; and
instinct, which is infallible in the animal domain, should be no less
so in the domain of the mind.
So far as lies in my power, I have sought to discern the essential
motives of the insect’s anomalies. By no means always has the answer
brought a firm conviction. And so, to end this chapter, in which so
many glimpses remain shrouded in doubt, I set here, plain to see, in
the middle of the page, the augur’s lituus, the note of interrogation:
?
CHAPTER XIII
THE GOLD BEETLES: THEIR FOOD
As I write the first lines of this chapter, I think of the Chicago
slaughter-yards. Those horrible meat-factories where, in the course of
the year, men cut up over a million Bullocks and nearly two million
Pigs, which, entering the factory alive, come out at the other end
changed into tins of preserved meat, lard, sausages and rolled hams. I
think of them because the Carabus, or Ground-beetle, is about to show
us a similar swiftness in butchery.
I have twenty-five Gold-beetles (Carabus auratus, Lin.) in a large
glass vivarium. At present they are motionless, cowering under a bit of
board which I gave them as a shelter. With their bellies cooled by the
sand and their backs warmed by the board, which is visited by the
searching rays of the sun, they slumber and digest their food. By good
luck I chance upon a procession of Pine-caterpillars [89] descending
from their tree in search of a favourable spot for burial, the prelude
to the underground cocoon. Here is an excellent herd for the
slaughter-house of the Carabi.
I collect them and place them in the vivarium. The procession soon
forms again; the caterpillars, about a hundred and fifty in number,
move in an undulating line. They pass near the piece of board, in
single file, like the Pigs at Chicago. This is the propitious moment. I
let slip my wild animals, that is to say, I remove their shelter.
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; the caterpillars writhe
convulsively and lash out with their tails, suddenly coiling and
uncoiling, clinging with their feet, dribbling and biting. Those as yet
unscathed dig desperately in an attempt to take refuge underground. Not
one succeeds. They are hardly half-way down before the Carabus hastens
up, pulls them out and rips them open.
If the butchery were not occurring in a dumb world, we should have all
the frightful hubbub of the Chicago massacres. But it needs the ear of
the imagination to hear the shrieks and lamentations of the
eviscerated. This ear I possess; and I am seized with remorse for
having provoked such sufferings.
The Beetles are now rummaging everywhere in the heap of dead and dying,
each tugging and tearing at a morsel which he carries off to swallow
privately, away from envious eyes. After this mouthful, another is
hurriedly cut off the carcase, followed by more still, as long as any
dismembered bodies remain. In a few minutes the procession is reduced
to a few shreds of still quivering flesh.
There were a hundred and fifty caterpillars; the butchers are
twenty-five. This makes six victims to each Carabus. If the insect had
nothing to do but to kill indefinitely, like the labourers in the
meat-factories, and if the staff consisted of a hundred disembowellers,
a very modest figure compared with that of the ham-boners, the total
number of victims, in a ten hours’ day, would be thirty-six thousand.
No Chicago cannery ever achieved such an output.
The speed of the assassination is even more remarkable when we consider
the difficulties of the attack. The Carabus has nothing like the
endless chain which seizes the Pig by one leg, hoists it up and swings
it along to the butcher’s knife; he has nothing like the sliding plank
which brings the Bullock’s forehead beneath the slaughterer’s mallet;
he has to fall upon his prey, overpower it and steer clear of its tusks
and claws. Moreover, what he disembowels he eats on the spot. What a
massacre it would be if the insect had nothing to do but kill!
What do we learn from the Chicago slaughter-houses and the
Gold-beetle’s feasting? This: the man of lofty morals is nowadays a
rather rare exception. Under the skin of the civilized being we nearly
always find the ancestor, the savage contemporary with the Cave-bear.
True humanity does not yet exist; it is being very gradually formed by
the leaven of the centuries and the lessons of conscience; it is
progressing towards better things with heart-breaking slowness.
It was only yesterday that slavery disappeared, the foundation of the
ancient community, and that people perceived that a man, even though
black, is really a man and as such deserving of consideration.
What was woman in the old days? What she still is in the East: a pretty
little animal without a soul. The question was discussed at great
length by the scholars. The great seventeenth-century bishop Bossuet
[90] himself, looked upon woman as the diminutive of man. The proof lay
in the origin of Eve: she was the superfluous bone, the thirteenth rib
which Adam had in the beginning. It has at last been admitted that
woman possesses a soul similar to our own and even its superior in
tenderness and devotion. She has been permitted to educate herself,
which she does with a zeal at least equal to that of her rival. But the
law, that gloomy cavern which is still the lurking-place of so many
barbarities, continues to regard her as incompetent, as a minor.
The abolition of slavery and the education of women are two enormous
strides upon the path of moral progress. Our grandchildren will go
further. They will see, with a clear vision, capable of piercing every
obstacle, that war is the most absurd of our eccentricities; that
conquerors, fighters of battles and despoilers of nations are execrable
scourges; that a hand-shake is better than a rifle-bullet; that the
happiest people is not that which possesses the most artillery but that
which labours in peace and produces abundantly; and that the amenities
of existence do not positively clamour for frontiers, beyond which the
vexatious custom-house-officer awaits us, searching our pockets and
plundering our luggage.
They will see all this, our grandsons, and many other wonders which
to-day rank as crazy dreams. Whither will it lead us, this ascent?
Towards the blue skies of the ideal? To no very great height, I fear.
We are afflicted with an indelible taint, a sort of original sin, if we
may give the name of sin to a state of affairs in which our free will
plays no part. We are built that way and we cannot help it. It is the
taint of the belly, that inexhaustible source of brutality.
The intestine rules the world. In the midst of our gravest affairs the
question of bread and butter rises imperious. So long as there are
stomachs that digest—and as yet we see no possibility of dispensing
with them—we must have the wherewithal to satisfy them and the strong
will live by the misfortunes of the weak. Life is an abyss which only
death can fill. Hence endless butcheries, on which man, Gold-beetles
and others feed; hence the perpetual massacres that have made of the
world a slaughter-house beside which those of Chicago hardly count.
But the feasters are legion and the victuals are not abundant in
proportion. Those who have not envy those who have; the famished show
their teeth to the sated. Then follows the battle for the right of
possession. Man raises armies to defend his harvests, his cellars, his
granaries; and this is war. Shall we ever see the end of it? Alas and
seven times alas! So long as there are Wolves in the world, there must
be Sheep-dogs to defend the flock!
Carried away by our thoughts, we have left our Beetles far behind. Let
us hurry back to them. What was my reason for provoking the massacre of
the Processionaries who were on the point of quietly burying themselves
when I confronted them with their butchers? Was it to enjoy the
spectacle of a frantic massacre? Certainly not: I have always pitied
the sufferings of animals; and the life of the smallest is worthy of
respect. To overcome that compassion, the demands of scientific
research were needed; and these are sometimes cruel.
I had in view the habits of the Gold-beetle, the little ranger of our
gardens who, for this reason, is popularly known as the Gardener. How
far does he deserve to be called a helper? What does the Carabus hunt?
Of what vermin does he rid our flower-beds? We have seen a promising
start made with the Pine Processionary. Let us continue in the same
direction.
On various occasions late in April, the enclosure provides me with
processions, now longer, now shorter. I capture them and place them in
the glass vivarium. No sooner is the banquet served than the feasting
begins. The caterpillars are ripped open, by a single consumer or by
several at one time. In less than fifteen minutes the herd is
completely exterminated. Nothing remains but shapeless lumps, which are
carried hither and thither to be consumed under the shelter of the
board. The well-provided Beetle decamps, with his booty in his teeth,
anxious to feast in peace. He is met by companions who, enticed by the
morsel dangling from the fugitive’s jaws, turn highwaymen. First two,
then three try to rob the lawful owner. Each grabs the fragment, tugs
at it, proceeds to swallow it without serious dispute. There is no
actual battle, no exchange of bites as with Dogs disputing a bone.
Everything is confined to attempts at theft. If the owner retains his
hold, they all eat peacefully in common, mandibles touching mandibles,
until the piece is torn apart and each retires with his shred.
The Pine Processionary, seasoned with that stinging poison which,
during my earlier investigations, brought out such a violent rash upon
my skin, must be a very pungent dish. My Carabi thoroughly enjoy it.
The more processions I provide, the more they consume. The fare is
highly appreciated. Nevertheless, no one, so far as I know, has ever
met the Gold Beetle or her larva in the silken purses of the Bombyx.
[91] I have not the slightest hope that I shall one day find them there
myself. These purses are inhabited only in winter, when the Carabus,
indifferent to food and overcome by torpor, lies snugly underground.
But in April, when the caterpillars march in procession, seeking a good
site for burial and metamorphosis, the Beetle, if he has the good luck
to encounter them, must profit largely by the windfall.
The furry nature of the game does not put him off; nevertheless, the
hairiest of our caterpillars, the so-called Hedgehog, [92] with its
undulating mane, half-red, half-black, does seem to be too much for the
glutton. For days on end it wanders about the cage in the assassins’
society. The Carabi seem to ignore its presence. From time to time, one
of them will stop, circumnavigate the hairy creature, examine it and
try to dig into the bristling fleece. Rebuffed at once by the long,
thick, hairy palisade, he retires without biting to the quick. Proud
and unscathed, the caterpillar proceeds upon its way with undulating
back.
This cannot last. In a moment of hunger, emboldened moreover by the
co-operation of his fellows, the poltroon decides upon a serious
attack. There are four of them, very busy around the Hedgehog, which,
worried before and behind, ends by succumbing. It is ripped open and
devoured as greedily as any defenceless caterpillar would be.
I supply my menagerie with various caterpillars, naked or hairy, as I
chance to find them. All are accepted with the utmost zest, on the one
condition that their size is not excessive as compared with that of the
murderer. Too small, they are despised: the morsel would not provide an
adequate mouthful. Those of the Spurge Hawk-moth and the Great Peacock
Moth, for instance, would suit the Carabus, were it not that, at the
first bite, the intended victim, by a twist of its powerful rump, hurls
its assailant afar. After a few assaults, each followed by a distant
tumble, the insect helplessly and regretfully abandons the attack. The
prey is too vigorous. I have kept the two sturdy caterpillars caged
with my savage Beetles for a fortnight; and nothing very serious has
happened to them. The abrupt intervention of a suddenly lifted rump
overawed the ferocious mandibles.
We will award a first good mark to the Gold Beetle, for exterminating
any not too powerful caterpillar. The merit is spoilt by one flaw. The
insect is not a climber: it hunts on the ground, not in the foliage
overhead. I have never seen it explore the twigs of the smallest shrub.
In my cages, it pays no attention to the most enticing quarry fixed to
a tuft of thyme, a few inches high. This is a great pity. If the insect
could only climb and undertake overhead raids, how quickly would a gang
of three or four purge the cabbage of its scourge, the Pieris
Caterpillar! The very best always have some defect.
The Gold Beetle must be given another good mark with reference to
Slugs. He feeds on all of them, including even the biggest, the Grey
Slug, flecked with dark spots. The corpulent creature is soon disposed
of, when attacked by three or four knackers. They make by choice for
that part of the back which is protected by an inner shell, a sort of
slab of mother-of-pearl that covers the region of the heart and lung.
The stony particles of which the shell is constructed abound here
rather than elsewhere; and the Carabus seems to like this mineral
condiment. In the same way, the favourite morsel in the Snail is the
mantle, speckled with chalky dots. Easily caught and highly appreciated
in flavour, the Slug, crawling at night towards the tender lettuces,
must often provide the Gold Beetles with a meal. Together with the
caterpillar, he appears to be the Beetle’s usual fare.
We must add the Earthworm, Lumbricus terrestris, often found outside
its burrow in rainy weather. Even the biggest do not intimidate the
aggressor. I dish up an Earthworm eight inches long and as thick as my
little finger. The enormous annelid is attacked as soon as seen: six
Carabi come hastening up together. As its only means of defence, the
victim writhes forwards and backwards, wriggling and rolling upon
itself. The monstrous worm drags with it, now on top and now below, the
stubborn carvers, who do not let go and work alternately in their
normal position or with upturned bellies. Constantly rolling and
pitching, burying itself in the sand and reappearing, it does not
succeed in discouraging them. It would be difficult to find a parallel
to their tenacity.
They continue to bite at the points once bitten; they hold tight and
let the desperate worm flounder at will, until the tough, leathery skin
ends by giving way. The contents pour forth in a blood-stained mess,
into which the gluttons plunge their heads. Others hurry up to be in at
the death; and soon the mighty worm is a ruin odious to look upon. I
put an end to the orgy, lest the gormandizers, heavy with food, should
for a long time resist the experiments which I am contemplating. Their
frantic feasting tells me pretty clearly that they would finish the
huge saveloy if I did not interfere.
To make amends, I throw them an Earthworm of medium size. Ripped open
at different points and tugged to and fro, the worm is divided into
sections which each Beetle carries off as secured and moves away to
consume in seclusion. So long as the dish is not cut up, the banqueters
eat peacefully among themselves, often head to head, with their
mandibles fixed in the same wound; but, so soon as they feel that they
have lopped off a bit that suits them, they hasten to make away with
their plunder, far from any covetous envy. The bulk is general
property, without strife or contest; but the particle extracted belongs
to the individual and must be nimbly carried out of the reach of any
thievish enterprises.
Let us vary the provisions as far as my resources will permit. Some
Cetoniæ (C. floricola) remain in the Gold Beetles’ company for a couple
of weeks. They are unmolested; they are hardly vouchsafed a passing
glance. Does this mean indifference to the particular game? Does it
mean that the game is difficult to attack? We shall see. I remove the
wings and wing-cases. The news that there are cripples about soon
spreads. The Carabi hasten along and greedily root in their bellies.
After a brief spell, the Cetoniæ are drained dry. The fare therefore is
deemed excellent, and it was the harness of the tight wing-cases that
at first intimidated the ravenous Beetles.
The result is the same with the big Black Chrysomela-beetle (Timarcha
tenebricosa). The intact insect is disdained by the Carabus, who often
encounters it in the vivarium and passes on, without trying to open the
hermetically sealed meat-tin. But, if I remove the wing-cases, it is
very satisfactorily devoured, notwithstanding its orange-yellow
secretions. Again, the same Chrysomela’s fat larva, with its delicate,
bare skin, makes a treat for the Carabus. Its almost metallic,
bronze-black colour causes no hesitation in the hunter. As soon as
seen, the tasty morsel is grabbed, ripped open and consumed. The bronze
pill is regarded as a choice titbit; as many are devoured as I am able
to serve.
Under the strongly-built roof of their wing-cases, the Cetonia and the
Black Chrysomela are safe from the attacks of the Gold Beetle, who has
not the knack of forcing open the cuirass to reach the tender abdomen.
If, on the other hand, the tin is less precisely closed, the ravener
finds it an easy matter to lift the defensive sheaths of his prey and
attain his ends. After a few attempts, he raises the wing-cases of
Cerambyx cerdo and of many others from behind; he opens his oyster,
pushes aside the shells and lays bare the succulent dainties of the
abdomen. Any Beetle is accepted, if it be possible to force open the
tin.
I serve a Great Peacock, fresh from the cocoon. The Gold Beetle does
not make a fierce rush for the magnificent titbit. He approaches warily
at intervals, trying to nibble at the abdomen. But, at the first touch
of the mandibles, the Moth grows excited, beats the ground with her
wide wings and, with a sudden flap, hurls the aggressor to a distance.
Attack is impossible with such game as this, for ever fluttering and
giving vigorous jerks. I cut off the big Moth’s wings. The assailants
are soon on the spot. There are seven of them tugging and biting the
cripple’s belly. The down flies off in tufts, the skin breaks and the
seven Beetles besetting the quarry dive into the entrails. It is like a
pack of Wolves devouring a horse. In a little while the Great Peacock
is eviscerated.
The Carabus has no particular liking for the Snail (Helix aspersa) so
long as he remains intact. I place two in the midst of my Beetles, whom
a couple of days’ fasting has rendered more than usually enterprising.
The molluscs are ensconced within their shells; and these are stuck
into the sand of the cage mouth upwards. The Carabi come up and stop
for a moment, in turns; they taste the slime and at once go away in
disgust, without insisting further. Slightly bitten here and there, the
Snail foams by driving out the small reserve of air contained in his
pulmonary sac. This viscous froth constitutes his protection. The
passing Beetle who takes a modest mouthful of this retires forthwith,
not caring to dig any more.
The foamy covering is highly effective. I leave the two Snails all day
in the presence of the famished Beetles. No disaster befalls them. Next
morning I find them as fresh and fit as before. To save the Carabus
from that odious froth, I lay bare the two molluscs over an expanse as
wide as my thumb-nail, removing a fragment of the shell in the region
of the pulmonary sac. The attack now becomes prompt and persistent.
Five or six Gold Beetles at a time take their stands around the breach
that lays bare the non-slimy flesh. There would be more of them if
there were room for a greater number, for some eager Carabi arrive who
try to slip in between the occupants. Above the breach a sort of
scrimmage forms, in which those nearest the victim dig and uproot its
flesh, while the others look on or steal a bit from their neighbour’s
lips. In one afternoon, the Snail is emptied almost to the bottom of
his spiral.
Next day, when the carnage is at its height, I remove the prey and
replace it by an untouched Snail, fixed in the sand with the opening at
the top. Aroused by a bath of water, the animal comes out of its shell,
protruding its swan-like neck and extending to their full length its
telescopic eye-stalks, which seem quite placidly to contemplate the
frantic saraband of the ravenous Beetles. The imminent danger of
evisceration does not prevent it from fully displaying its tender
flesh, an easy prey on which, one would think, the gluttons, deprived
of their meat, will fling themselves to continue the interrupted feast.
But what is this? None of the Gold Beetles pays any attention to the
magnificent quarry, which, swaying with a wave-like motion, is largely
uncovered by its fortress. If one of the starvelings, more greatly
daring than the others, ventures to dig a tooth into the mollusc, the
Snail contracts, goes indoors and begins to foam. This is enough to
repel the assailant. All the afternoon and all night, the victim
remains thus in the presence of five-and-twenty disembowellers; and
nothing serious happens.
This same experiment, repeated on sundry occasions, proves that the
Gold Beetle does not attack the unwounded Snail, even when the latter,
after a shower of rain, is crawling over the wet grass, protruding all
the fore-part of his body from the shell. The Carabus wants cripples,
helpless inmates of broken shells; he wants a breach which enables him
to bite at a point not liable to slaver. In these circumstances, the
“Gardener” can do little to restrain the Snail’s misdeeds. When injured
by accident, more or less badly crushed, the ravager of our garden
stuff would soon die without the Gold Beetle’s intervention.
From time to time, to vary the diet, I feed a piece of butcher’s meat
to my charges. The Carabi eagerly flock around it, diligently taking up
their stand, mincing it into tiny morsels and devouring it. This food,
unknown to their race save perhaps in the form of a Mole disembowelled
by the peasant’s spade, suits them as well as does the caterpillar.
They like any sort of meat, excepting fish-meat. One day the bill of
fare consisted of a Sardine. The guzzlers came trotting up, took a few
mouthfuls and then withdrew without touching it again. It was too much
of a novelty for them.
I must not forget to mention that the cage is provided with a
drinking-trough, that is to say, a saucer full of water. The Gold
Beetles often come and drink at it after their meals. Parched after
their heating diet and, moreover, daubed all over with slime after
cutting up a Snail, they quench their thirst at the saucer, rinse their
mouths and bathe their tarsi, which are shod in sticky boots heavy with
sand. After this ablution, they make for their shelter under the bit of
board and quietly enjoy a long siesta.
CHAPTER XIV
THE GOLD BEETLES: THEIR NUPTIAL HABITS
It is admitted that, as an ardent destroyer of caterpillars and Slugs,
the Gold Beetle has pre-eminently earned his title of “Gardener”: he is
the watchful keeper of our kitchen-gardens and our flower-borders. If
my enquiries add nothing to his established reputation in this respect,
they will at least, in what follows, display the insect in an as yet
unsuspected light. The ferocious eater, the ogre devouring any prey not
beyond his powers, is eaten in his turn. And by whom? By his own kin
and many others.
We will begin by naming two of his enemies, the Fox and the Toad, who,
in hard times, for lack of anything better, do not disdain such lean
and caustic mouthfuls. When telling the story of the Trox, I described
how the excreta of the Fox, which are easily recognized by the
Rabbit’s-fur whereof they largely consist, are sometimes encrusted with
Gold Beetles’ wing-cases: the ordure is adorned with sheets of gold.
This testifies to the bill of fare. It is not highly nourishing nor
particularly plentiful and it tastes bitter; but, after all, a few
Carabi help to stay the appetite a little.
As regards the Toad, I have similar evidence. In summer, in the
garden-paths, from time to time I happen on some curious objects whose
origin at first leaves me quite undecided. They are small black
sausages, the thickness of my little finger, which crumble very easily
after drying in the sun. We recognize a conglomeration of Ants’ heads
and nothing besides, unless it be some remnants of slender leg. What
can this singular product be, this granular amalgam consisting of
hundreds and hundreds of heads packed close together?
One’s mind turns to a ball disgorged by the Owl after the nourishing
part has been sorted by the stomach. Further reflection discards the
idea: a nocturnal bird of prey, though fond of insects, does not feed
on such tiny game as this. To catch on the sticky tip of the tongue
such very small fry and to collect them one by one calls for a consumer
endowed with plenty of time and patience. Who is it? Could it be the
Toad? I see no other in the enclosure to whom I can attribute a
salmagundy of Ants. Experiment will solve the riddle for us.
I have an old acquaintance in the garden and I know where he lives. We
often meet at the hour of my evening rounds. He looks at me with his
gold-yellow eyes and gravely passes on to attend to his business. He is
a Toad big enough to fill a saucer, a veteran respected by the whole
household. We call him the Philosopher. I apply to him to elucidate the
question of the conglomerations of Ants’ heads.
I imprison him in a cage, without any food, and wait until the contents
of his sated paunch undergo the labours of digestion. Things do not
take very long. After a few days’ time, the prisoner presents me with a
specimen of black ordure, moulded into a cylinder, exactly resembling
those which I observe on the paths of the enclosure. It is, like the
others, an amalgam of Ants’ heads. I restore the Philosopher to
liberty. Thanks to him, the problem which puzzled me so greatly is
solved: I know for certain that the Toad is a great eater of Ants, a
very small quarry, it is true, but easy to collect and inexhaustible.
It is not always a free choice on his part. He prefers larger mouthfuls
when available. He lives mainly on Ants because they abound in the
enclosure, whereas the other insects running on the surface of the
ground are comparatively scarce. If occasionally the glutton finds more
sumptuous fare, he appreciates the feast all the more highly.
In evidence of these unusual banquets, I will mention certain dejecta
found in the enclosure and composed almost entirely of Gold Beetles’
wing-cases. The remainder of the product, the paste joining the golden
scales together, consisted of Ants’ heads, the authentic work of the
consumer. So the Toad feeds on Carabi when he has the opportunity. He,
our garden helper, robs us of another helper no less valuable. The
useful, from our point of view, destroys the useful: a little lesson
which should modify our ingenuous belief that all things are created
for our service.
There is worse to come. The Gold Beetle, the policeman who, in our
gardens, keeps an eye on the misdeeds of the caterpillar and the Slug,
is guilty of the vice of cannibalism. One day, in the shadow of the
plane-trees outside my door, I see one passing very busily. The pilgrim
is welcome: he will increase by one the colony in my vivarium. As I
capture him, I perceive that the tips of his wing-cases are slightly
damaged. Is this the result of a fight between rivals? There is nothing
to tell me. The great thing is that the Beetle should not be
handicapped by a serious injury. I examine him, find that he is
unwounded and fit for service and put him among the twenty-five
occupants of the glass cage.
Next day, I look for the new inmate. He is dead. His comrades have
attacked him during the night and cleaned out his abdomen, which was
inadequately protected by the injured wing-cases. The operation was
very neatly done, without any mutilation. Legs, head, corselet are all
in their right places; only the abdomen has a wide opening through
which its contents have been removed. What we see is a sort of golden
shell formed of two connected wing-cases. An Oyster-shell emptied of
its mollusc looks no cleaner.
This result astonishes me, for I take very good care that the cage is
never without provisions. The Snail, the Cockchafer, the Praying
Mantis, the Earthworm, the caterpillar and other favourite dishes
alternate in my refectory in more than sufficient quantities. My Gold
Beetles therefore had not the excuse of hunger in devouring a brother
whose damaged armour lent itself to easy attack.
Can it be their custom to finish off the wounded and to ransack the
stomach of an injured kinsman? Pity is unknown among the insects. At
the sight of the desperate struggles of a crippled relation, not one of
the same race will stop, not one will try to help him. With carnivorous
insects, matters may take an even more tragic turn. Sometimes the
passers-by will run up to the invalid. Do they do so in order to assist
him? Not at all: they do it to see what he tastes like and, if they
find him good, to cure his ills thoroughly by devouring him.
It is therefore possible that the Carabus with the damaged wing-cases
tempted his comrades by the sight of his partly denuded body. They saw
in their helpless brother a prey which it was lawful to dissect. But do
they respect one another when there is no previous injury? At first
sight, everything would seem to show that their relations are very
peaceful. There is never any scuffling between the feasters at their
meals, nothing but mouth-to-mouth robberies. Nor are there any quarrels
during the long siestas under the cover of the board. Half-buried in
the cool earth, my five-and-twenty specimens quietly slumber and digest
their food, at no great distance one from the other, each in his little
trench. If I take away the shelter, they awake, make off, run hither
and thither, constantly meeting without molesting one another.
Profound peace therefore prevails and seems likely to last for ever
when, on inspecting the cage during the first heats of June, I find a
dead Carabus. His limbs are intact; he is very neatly reduced to a mere
golden husk; he shows us once more what we saw in the helpless Beetle
who was lately devoured; he reminds us of the shell of the eaten
Oyster. I examine the remains. But for the huge breach in the abdomen,
all is as it should be. So the insect was in good health when the
others gutted it.
A few days later, yet another Carabus is slain and treated like the
others, with all the various pieces of the armour undisturbed. If we
lay him on his belly, he seems as though intact; if we lay him on his
back, he is hollow, without a scrap of flesh left inside his carapace.
A little later I find another empty relic, then another, and yet
another, until my menagerie is rapidly diminishing. If this frenzied
slaughter continues, I shall soon have nothing left in the vivarium.
Can it be that my Gold Beetles, worn out by age, die a natural death or
that the females batten on the corpses, or is the population being
reduced at the expense of hale and hearty subjects? It is not easy to
elucidate the matter, for the disembowelling usually takes place at
night. Nevertheless, by exerting vigilance, I twice succeed in
observing the autopsy by daylight.
In the middle of June, before my eyes a female sets to work upon a
male, whom I recognize as such by his rather smaller size. The
operation begins. Lifting the ends of the wing-cases, the assailant
seizes her victim by the tip of the abdomen, on the dorsal surface.
Eagerly she tugs and munches. The captive, though in the pink of
condition, does not defend himself, does not turn round. He pulls his
hardest in the opposite direction, to release himself from the terrible
mandibles; he moves this way or that, according as he is dragging his
aggressor or being dragged by her; and here his resistance ends. The
combat lasts a quarter of an hour. Other Beetles passing by, stop, as
though to say:
“My turn next.”
At last, redoubling his efforts, the male frees himself and escapes. No
doubt, if he had not succeeded in getting away, he would have had his
belly gutted by the fearsome dame.
A few days later I witness a similar scene, but this time the tragedy
is completed. Once more it is a female who seizes a male from behind.
The bitten one submits with no more protest than his vain efforts to
release himself. The skin at last gives way, the wound widens, the
viscera are rooted out and swallowed by the matron, who empties the
carapace with her head buried in her compeer’s belly. The tremors of
the poor wretch’s legs announce his approaching end. The murderess
takes no notice and continues to rummage as far up as the narrow
entrance to the thorax allows her to go. Nothing is left of the
deceased but the wing-cases, packed boat-wise, and the fore-part of the
body, which is not disjointed. The empty remains are abandoned where
they lie.
So must have perished the Gold Beetles, always males, whose relics I
find from time to time in the cage; thus the survivors too must perish.
Between the middle of June and the first of August, the inmates,
numbering twenty-five at the outset, are reduced to five females. All
the twenty males have disappeared, ripped open and drained dry. And by
whom? Apparently by the females.
This is borne out by the two assaults which chance permitted me to
witness; twice, in broad daylight, I saw the female devour the male
after opening his belly under the wing-cases, or at least trying to do
so. As for the rest of the murders, though direct observation be
lacking, I have one very valuable piece of evidence. As we have seen,
the captive does not retaliate, does not defend himself; he merely
strives to escape by pulling as hard as he can.
If it were a simple fight, an ordinary scuffle such as life’s rivalries
may lead to, the Beetle attacked would obviously turn round, since he
is in a position to do so; in a close tussle, he would retort on the
aggressor and give bite for bite. His strength enables him to wage a
battle which might turn to his advantage; and the fool allows his rump
to be gnawed with impunity. It looks as though an invincible repugnance
prevents him from retaliating by eating a bit of her who is eating him.
This tolerance reminds me of the Languedocian Scorpion, [93] who, after
his wedding, allows himself to be devoured by his mate without using
his weapon, the poisoned sting which is quite capable of killing the
virago; it reminds me of the Praying Mantis’ swain, who is sometimes
reduced to a mere stump and, in spite of all, continues his unfinished
work while he is being chewed in little mouthfuls, without the least
expression of revolt. [94] These are nuptial rites against which the
male is not entitled to protest.
The males in my collection of Gold Beetles, from the first to the last
eviscerated, tell us of similar habits. They are the victims of their
mates when these have had their fill of matrimony. During four months,
from April to July, couples form daily, sometimes only tentatively,
sometimes and more often concluding in effective pairing. There is no
end to it with these fiery temperaments.
The Carabus is expeditious in his love-affairs. A male passing in the
crowd flings himself upon a female, the first that comes, without any
previous flirting. The she thus bestridden lifts her head a little as a
sign of acquiesence, while her rider whips her neck with the tips of
his antennæ. When the coupling is finished—and it does not take
long—the two separate abruptly, recuperate their strength by a mouthful
of the Snail served up for their food, after which they both get
married again, the wedding being repeated so long as males remain
available. After feasting, a brutal wooing; after the wooing, more
feasting: this sums up the Gold Beetle’s life.
The ladies in my menagerie were not in proportion to the number of
suitors: there were five females to twenty males. No matter: there was
no rivalry, no exchange of blows; a most peaceful use and abuse was
made of the passing fair. With this mutual tolerance, sooner or later,
many times over and according to the chance of the encounters, each one
finds the wherewithal to satisfy his ardour.
I should have preferred a more evenly divided assembly. Luck, not
choice, gave me that which I had at my disposal. I collected in early
spring all the Gold Beetles that I could find under the stones around,
without distinction of sex, which is not easy to recognize merely by
external characteristics. Afterwards, as I reared them in my cages, I
learnt that a slight excess in size was the distinctive sign of the
females. My menagerie, so unequal in the numerical relation of the
sexes, was therefore a fortuitous result. It seems likely that this
proportion of males does not exist under natural conditions.
On the other hand, such numerous groups are never seen at liberty,
sheltered under the same stone. The Gold Beetle leads an almost
solitary life; it is rare to find two or three gathered at one spot.
The assembly in my menagerie is therefore exceptional, although it does
not lead to disorder. There is plenty of room in the glass cage for
distant rambles and for all the usual diversions. He who wants to be
alone remains alone; he who wants company soon finds it.
For that matter, captivity does not seem to trouble them unduly, as is
shown by the frequent feasting and their daily repeated mating. They
could thrive no better if at liberty in the fields: perhaps they would
not thrive so well, for food is not so abundant there as in the cage.
As regards comfort, therefore, the prisoners are in a normal condition
favouring the preservation of their usual habits.
Only, meetings of kinsfolk occur more often here than in the open.
This, no doubt, affords the females better opportunities to persecute
the males for whom they have no further use, to grab them by the rump
and disembowel them. This hunting of the bygone lovers is aggravated
but certainly not innovated by the too close vicinity: such customs are
never improvised.
When the mating is over, a female meeting a male in the open must then
treat him as fair game and munch him up in order to close the
matrimonial rites. I have turned over many stones but have never
chanced upon this spectacle; no matter: what I saw in the cage is
enough to convince me. What a world the Gold Beetle lives in, where the
matron devours her partner when she no longer needs him to fertilize
her ovaries! And how lightly do the laws of creation hold the males, to
allow them to be butchered in this way!
Are these fits of cannibalism following upon love widely distributed?
For the moment I know only three really characteristic examples: those
of the Praying Mantis, the Languedocian Scorpion and the Golden
Carabus. The horror of the lover converted into prey is also found in
the Locustian tribe, though accompanied by less brutality, for the
victim devoured is now a dead and not a living insect. The female of
the White-faced Decticus [95] is quite willing to nibble a leg of the
defunct male. The Green Grasshopper [96] behaves likewise.
To a certain degree the nature of the diet acts as an excuse: Dectici
and Grasshoppers are first and foremost carnivores. Coming upon a
corpse of their own species, the matrons consume it more or less
thoroughly, even if it be that of last night’s lover. Considered as
game, one is as good as another.
But what shall we say of the vegetarians? As the laying-season
approaches, the Ephippiger turns upon her companion, still full of
life, and bites him, makes a hole in his belly and eats as much of him
as her appetite allows. The easy-going Cricket suddenly develops a
shrewish character: she beats the mate who lately wooed her in such
impassioned serenades; she rends his wings, breaks his fiddle and even
goes so far as to tear a few mouthfuls from the musician. [97] So it
seems probable that this mortal aversion of the female for the male
after the pairing is fairly common, especially among the carnivorous
insects. What is the reason of these atrocious habits? If circumstances
favour me, I shall not fail to investigate it.
Of the whole colony in the cage I have five females left at the
beginning of August. Their conduct has changed greatly since the eating
of the males. Food has become indifferent to them. They no longer run
up to the Snail, whom I serve half-stripped of his shell; they scorn
the plump Mantis and the Caterpillar, their erstwhile delights; they
doze under the shelter of the board and rarely show themselves. Can
this mean preparation for the laying? I enquire into this day by day,
being most anxious to see the first appearance of the little larvæ, an
artless first appearance, deprived of all solicitude, as I foresee from
the lack of industry in the mother.
I wait in vain: there is no laying. Meanwhile the cool nights of
October arrive. Four females perish, this time by a natural death.
The survivor takes no notice of them. She refuses them burial in her
stomach, a burial at one time accorded to the males, dissected alive.
She cowers as deep down in the ground as the scanty earth of the cage
permits. In November, when Mont Ventoux is white with the first snows,
she grows torpid in her hiding-place. Let us henceforth leave her in
peace. She will live through the winter, everything seems to tell us,
and produce her eggs next spring.
NOTES
[1] One of the wild Bees. Cf. The Mason-bees, by J. Henri Fabre,
translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. viii; and
Bramble-bees and Others, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. ii., iv. and vii.—Translator’s Note.
[2] A parasitic Bee. Cf. The Mason-bees: chap. viii.—Translator’s Note.
[3] For these wild bees, cf. Bramble-bees and others:
passim.—Translator’s Note.
[4] Drone-flies.—Translator’s Note.
[5] Cf. The Hunting Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos: chap. vii.; and The Mason-Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre,
translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. ix and
x.—Translator’s Note.
[6] Cf. The Life of the Caterpillar, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xiv.—Translator’s Note.
[7] The Cetonia is also known as the Rose-chafer (C. aurata). Cf. More
Hunting Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de
Mattos: Translator’s Note.
[8] Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. i to vii. and in particular chap.
iv.—Translator’s Note.
[9] This Beetle, also known as C. Oxythyrea, Muls., is black and, in
the males, covered with white spots, suggesting a pall.—Translator’s
Note.
[10] .117 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[11] 732 cubic inches.—Translator’s Note.
[12] The Rhinoceros-Beetle.—Translator’s Note.
[13] René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683–1757), the French
physicist and naturalist, inventor of the Réaumur thermometer and
author of Mémoires pour savoir à l’histoire naturelle des
insectes.—Translator’s Note.
[14] Cf. The Life of the Fly, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. x.—Translator’s Note.
[15] Cf. idem: chaps. xiv. to xvi.—Translator’s Note.
[16] Carolus Linnæus (Karl von Linné, 1707–1778), the celebrated
Swedish botanist and naturalist.—Translator’s Note.
[17] Or Greenbottles. Cf. The Life of the Fly: chap. ix.—Translator’s
Note.
[18] Under carrion: S. subnitidus, De Mars: S. detersus Illig.: S.
maculatus, Ros.: S. æneus, Fab.—Author’s Note.
Under dung: S. speculifer, Latr.: S. virescens, Payk.: S. metallescens,
Erich: S. furvus, Erich: S. rotundatus, Illig.—Author’s Note.
[19] S. carnaria is the Grey Flesh-fly.—Translator’s Note.
[20] Or Burying-beetle. Cf. The Glow-worm and Other Beetles, by J.
Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. xi. and
xii.—Translator’s Note.
[21] Cf. The Glow-worm and Other Beetles: chaps. xi. and
xii.—Translator’s Note.
[22] An order of insects consisting mainly of Bugs.—Translator’s Note.
[23] The essay on the Masked Reduvius will appear in the following
volume, the last volume of the series.—Translator’s Note.
[24] Or Rove-beetles.—Translator’s Note.
[25] Gustave Doré (1833–1883), the French illustrator of Dante,
Rabelais, La Fontaine and many others.—Translator’s Note.
[26] The Anoxia is a Beetle akin to the Cockchafer.—Translator’s Note.
[27] A genus of Land-Snails.—Translator’s Note.
[28] Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. vi. to ix.—Translator’s Note.
[29] Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps, xii. to xiv.—Translator’s Note.
[30] Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755–1826), the author of La Physiologie
du Goût.—Translator’s Note.
[31] Or True Ground-beetles. Cf. Chapters XIV and XV of the present
volume.—Translator’s Note.
[32] For the Scarabæus, or Sacred Beetle, the Broad-necked Scarab, the
Spanish Copris and the Lunary Copris, cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others:
chaps. i. to x. and xvi.—Translator’s Note.
[33] Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others: chaps. xi., xvii. and
xviii.—Translator’s Note.
[34] This is a reference to the days when the author was a provincial
schoolmaster. Cf. The Life of the Fly: chaps. xiii., xiv., xix., and
xx.—Translator’s Note.
[35] The Beetle under consideration is known to some nomenclators as
Geotrupes Typhœus.—Translator’s Note.
[36] Cf. The Life of the Caterpillar, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xi.—Translator’s Note.
[37] A genus of wild Bees. Cf. Bramble-bees and Others, by J. Henri
Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. iv. and vii.
and passim.—Translator’s Note.
[38] François Huber (1750–1831), the Swiss naturalist, author of
Nouvelles Observations sur les Abeilles. He early became blind from
excessive study and thereafter conducted his scientific work with the
aid of his wife.—Translator’s Note.
[39] The Sacred Beetle and Others: chap. x., Cf. v.—Translator’s Note.
[40] Cf. idem, chap. viii.—Translator’s Note.
[41] Cf. The Life of the Spider: chap. v. The essays on the Scorpion
will appear in the next, the concluding volume of the
series.—Translator’s Note.
[42] Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others: chap. xvi.—Translator’s Note.
[43] Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others: chaps. xi., xvii. and
xviii.—Translator’s Note.
[44] Nicolas Joseph Laurent Gilbert (1751–1780), a satirical poet, many
strophes of whose Adieux à la Vie have become classic.—Translator’s
Note.
[45] “And thenceforth, of his wings and scythe despoiled,
Time sleeps, unmoving on the worlds destroyed.”
[46] Voltaire’s story of that name.—Translator’s Note.
[47] “Luxury had reached such a pitch among the Romans that they looked
upon the huge worms of the oak as a delicacy; they called them Cossi.”
[48] Cf. The Glow-worm and Other Beetles: chap. vii.—Translator’s Note.
[49] Cossus ligniperda, the caterpillar of Xylentes cossus, the Great
Goat-moth.—Translator’s Note.
[50] Marcus Gabius Apicus, a famous Roman epicure who lived in the days
of Augustus and Tiberius.—Translator’s Note.
[51] Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (1755–1826), the famous French
gastronomer, author of La Physiologie du goût.—Translator’s Note.
[52] The Rhinoceros Beetle. Cf. The Glow-worm and Other Beetles: chap.
xiii.—Translator’s Note.
[53] Cf. Chapters xiii. and xiv. of the present volume.—Translator’s
Note.
[54] Cf. The Glow-worm and Other Beetles: chaps. viii. and
xiv.—Translator’s Note.
[55] Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper: chaps. i to v.—Translator’s Note.
[56] For this Beetle cf. The Life of the Fly: chap. xviii.—Translator’s
Note.
[57] Cf. The Glow-worm and Other Beetles: chap. viii.—Translator’s
Note.
[58] Also known as the Musk Beetle. The insect emits a strong smell of
musk and is found crawling on decaying willows.—Translator’s Note.
[59] Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper: chaps. xii. and
xiii.—Translator’s Note.
[60] Cf. idem: chaps. xv. and xvi.—Translator’s Note.
[61] Cf. idem: chaps. xiii. and xiv.—Translator’s Note.
[62] Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper: chap. iv.—Translator’s Note.
[63] Cf. The Life of the Spider, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. x.—Translator’s Note.
[64] I do not wish to correct the author; but I find that all the books
of reference in my possession describe the pea-nut (Arachis hypogea) as
a native of Brazil and I am inclined to think that African, in the
French edition, may be a misprint for American.—Translator’s Note.
[65] .156 to .195 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[66] For the Pea-weevil and the Haricot-weevil, cf. The Life of the
Weevil, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos:
chaps. xi. to xiii.—Translator’s Note.
[67] For the Sloe-weevil, cf. idem: chap. x.—Translator’s Note.
[68] Cf. idem: chap. ii.—Translator’s Note.
[69] Cf. idem: chap. vi.—Translator’s Note.
[70] Cf. idem: chap. xiv.—Translator’s Note.
[71] For the Saperda-beetles cf. The Glow-worm and Other Beetles: chap.
viii.—Translator’s Note.
[72] .468 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[73] .702 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[74] ¾ inch.—Translator’s Note.
[75] 1 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[76] .326 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[77] ½ inch.—Translator’s Note.
[78] ¾ inch.—Translator’s Note.
[79] Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others: chap. ii.—Translator’s Note.
[80] Cf. idem: chap. viii.—Translator’s Note.
[81] Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others: chap. iii.—Translator’s Note.
[82] Cf. idem: chap. viii.—Translator’s Note.
[83] Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others: chap, xv.—Translator’s Note.
[84] Cf. The Life of the Weevil: chap. xiv.—Translator’s Note.
[85] The Life of the Grasshopper: chap. xvii.—Translator’s Note.
[86] The highest mountain in the neighbourhood of Sérignan; 6,268 feet.
Cf. The Hunting Wasps: by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xi.—Translator’s Note.
[87] A wild Bee. Cf. Bramble-dwellers and Others, by J. Henri Fabre,
translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. xii. to
xiv.—Translator’s Note.
[88] Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (fl. sub Augusto), author of De
Architectura.—Translator’s Note.
[89] Cf. The Life of the Caterpillar: chaps. i. to vi.—Translator’s
Note.
[90] Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux (1627–1704),—author of
many famous religious, historical and political works.—Translator’s
Note.
[91] The Pine Processionary is the caterpillar of the Moth known as the
Pine Bombyx.—Translator’s Note.
[92] The larva of the Tiger-moth (Celonia caja) Cf. The Life of the
Caterpillar: chaps. vi. and vii.—Translator’s Note.
[93] The seven essays on the Languedocian Scorpion will appear in the
final volume of the series, entitled The Life of the
Scorpion.—Translator’s Note.
[94] Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper: chaps. vi. to ix. and, in
particular, chap. vii.—Translator’s Note.
[95] Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper: chaps. xi. to xiii. and, in
particular, chap. xi.—Translator’s Note.
[96] Cf. idem: chap. xiv.—Translator’s Note.
[97] Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper: chap. xvi.—Translator’s Note.
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