We are in the middle of July. The astronomical dog-days are just
beginning; but in reality the torrid season has anticipated the
calendar and for some weeks past the heat has been overpowering.
This evening in the village they are celebrating the National Festival.
(The 14th of July, the anniversary of the fall of the
Bastille.--Translator's Note.) While the little boys and girls are
hopping round a bonfire whose gleams are reflected upon the
church-steeple, while the drum is pounded to mark the ascent of each
rocket, I am sitting alone in a dark corner, in the comparative
coolness that prevails at nine o'clock, harking to the concert of the
festival of the fields, the festival of the harvest, grander by far
than that which, at this moment, is being celebrated in the village
square with gunpowder, lighted torches, Chinese lanterns and, above
all, strong drink. It has the simplicity of beauty and the repose of
strength.
It is late; and the Cicadae are silent. Glutted with light and heat,
they have indulged in symphonies all the livelong day. The advent of
the night means rest for them, but a rest frequently disturbed. In the
dense branches of the plane-trees a sudden sound rings out like a cry
of anguish, strident and short. It is the desperate wail of the Cicada,
surprised in his quietude by the Green Grasshopper, that ardent
nocturnal huntress, who springs upon him, grips him in the side, opens
and ransacks his abdomen. An orgy of music, followed by butchery.
I have never seen and never shall see that supreme expression of our
national revelry, the military review at Longchamp; nor do I much
regret it. The newspapers tell me as much about it as I want to know.
They give me a sketch of the site. I see, installed here and there amid
the trees, the ominous Red Cross, with the legend, "Military Ambulance;
Civil Ambulance." There will be bones broken, apparently; cases of
sunstroke; regrettable deaths, perhaps. It is all provided for and all
in the programme.
Even here, in my village, usually so peaceable, the festival will not
end, I am ready to wager, without the exchange of a few blows, that
compulsory seasoning of a day of merry-making. No pleasure, it appears,
can be fully relished without an added condiment of pain.
Let us listen and meditate far from the tumult. While the disembowelled
Cicada utters his protest, the festival up there in the plane-trees is
continued with a change of orchestra. It is now the time of the
nocturnal performers. Hard by the place of slaughter, in the green
bushes, a delicate ear perceives the hum of the Grasshoppers. It is the
sort of noise that a spinning-wheel makes, a very unobtrusive sound, a
vague rustle of dry membranes rubbed together. Above this dull bass
there rises, at intervals, a hurried, very shrill, almost metallic
clicking. There you have the air and the recitative, intersected by
pauses. The rest is the accompaniment.
Despite the assistance of a bass, it is a poor concert, very poor
indeed, though there are about ten executants in my immediate vicinity.
The tone lacks intensity. My old tympanum is not always capable of
perceiving these subtleties of sound. The little that reaches me is
extremely sweet and most appropriate to the calm of twilight. Just a
little more breadth in your bow-stroke, my dear Green Grasshopper, and
your technique would be better than the hoarse Cicada's, whose name and
reputation you have been made to usurp in the countries of the north.
Still, you will never equal your neighbour, the little bell-ringing
Toad, who goes tinkling all round, at the foot of the plane-trees,
while you click up above. He is the smallest of my batrachian folk and
the most venturesome in his expeditions.
How often, at nightfall, by the last glimmers of daylight, have I not
come upon him as I wandered through my garden, hunting for ideas!
Something runs away, rolling over and over in front of me. Is it a dead
leaf blown along by the wind? No, it is the pretty little Toad
disturbed in the midst of his pilgrimage. He hurriedly takes shelter
under a stone, a clod of earth, a tuft of grass, recovers from his
excitement and loses no time in picking up his liquid note.
On this evening of national rejoicing, there are nearly a dozen of him
tinkling against one another around me. Most of them are crouching
among the rows of flower-pots that form a sort of lobby outside my
house. Each has his own note, always the same, lower in one case,
higher in another, a short, clear note, melodious and of exquisite
purity.
With their slow, rhythmical cadence, they seem to be intoning litanies.
"Cluck," says one; "click," responds another, on a finer note; "clock,"
adds a third, the tenor of the band. And this is repeated indefinitely,
like the bells of the village pealing on a holiday: "cluck, click,
clock; cluck, click, clock!"
The batrachian choristers remind me of a certain harmonica which I used
to covet when my six-year-old ear began to awaken to the magic of
sounds. It consisted of a series of strips of glass of unequal length,
hung on two stretched tapes. A cork fixed to a wire served as a hammer.
Imagine an unskilled hand striking at random on this key-board, with a
sudden clash of octaves, dissonances and topsy-turvy chords; and you
will have a pretty clear idea of the Toads' litany.
As a song, this litany has neither head nor tail to it; as a collection
of pure sounds, it is delicious. This is the case with all the music in
nature's concerts. Our ear discovers superb notes in it and then
becomes refined and acquires, outside the realities of sound, that
sense of order which is the first condition of beauty.
Now this sweet ringing of bells between hiding-place and hiding-place
is the matrimonial oratorio, the discreet summons which every Jack
issues to his Jill. The sequel to the concert may be guessed without
further enquiry; but what it would be impossible to foresee is the
strange finale of the wedding. Behold the father, in this case a real
paterfamilias, in the noblest sense of the word, coming out of his
retreat one day in an unrecognizable state. He is carrying the future,
tight-packed around his hind-legs; he is changing houses laden with a
cluster of eggs the size of peppercorns. His calves are girt, his
thighs are sheathed with the bulky burden; and it covers his back like
a beggar's wallet, completely deforming him.
Whither is he going, dragging himself along, incapable of jumping,
thanks to the weight of his load? He is going, the fond parent, where
the mother refuses to go; he is on his way to the nearest pond, whose
warm waters are indispensable to the tadpoles' hatching and existence.
When the eggs are nicely ripened around his legs under the humid
shelter of a stone, he braves the damp and the daylight, he the
passionate lover of dry land and darkness; he advances by short stages,
his lungs congested with fatigue. The pond is far away, perhaps; no
matter: the plucky pilgrim will find it.
He's there. Without delay, he dives, despite his profound antipathy to
bathing; and the cluster of eggs is instantly removed by the legs
rubbing against each other. The eggs are now in their element; and the
rest will be accomplished of itself. Having fulfilled his obligation to
go right under, the father hastens to return to his well-sheltered
home. He is scarcely out of sight before the little black tadpoles are
hatched and playing about. They were but waiting for the contact of the
water in order to burst their shells.
Among the singers in the July gloaming, one alone, were he able to vary
his notes, could vie with the Toad's harmonious bells. This is the
little Scops-owl, that comely nocturnal bird of prey, with the round
gold eyes. He sports on his forehead two small feathered horns which
have won for him in the district the name of Machoto banarudo, the
Horned Owl. His song, which is rich enough to fill by itself the still
night air, is of a nerve-shattering monotony. With imperturbable and
measured regularity, for hours on end, "kew, kew," the bird spits out
its cantata to the moon.
One of them has arrived at this moment, driven from the plane-trees in
the square by the din of the rejoicings, to demand my hospitality. I
can hear him in the top of a cypress near by. From up there, dominating
the lyrical assembly, at regular intervals he cuts into the vague
orchestration of the Grasshoppers and the Toads.
His soft note is contrasted, intermittently, with a sort of Cat's mew,
coming from another spot. This is the call of the Common Owl, the
meditative bird of Minerva. After hiding all day in the seclusion of a
hollow olive-tree, he started on his wanderings when the shades of
evening began to fall. Swinging along with a sinuous flight, he came
from somewhere in the neighbourhood to the pines in my enclosure,
whence he mingles his harsh mewing, slightly softened by distance, with
the general concert.
The Green Grasshopper's clicking is too faint to be clearly perceived
amidst these clamourers; all that reaches me is the least ripple, just
noticeable when there is a moment's silence. He possesses as his
apparatus of sound only a modest drum and scraper, whereas they, more
highly privileged, have their bellows, the lungs, which send forth a
column of vibrating air. There is no comparison possible. Let us return
to the insects.
One of these, though inferior in size and no less sparingly equipped,
greatly surpasses the Grasshopper in nocturnal rhapsodies. I speak of
the pale and slender Italian Cricket (Oecanthus pellucens, Scop.), who
is so puny that you dare not take him up for fear of crushing him. He
makes music everywhere among the rosemary-bushes, while the Glow-worms
light up their blue lamps to complete the revels. The delicate
instrumentalist consists chiefly of a pair of large wings, thin and
gleaming as strips of mica. Thanks to these dry sails, he fiddles away
with an intensity capable of drowning the Toads' fugue. His performance
suggests, but with more brilliancy, more tremolo in the execution, the
song of the Common Black Cricket. Indeed the mistake would certainly be
made by any one who did not know that, by the time the very hot weather
comes, the true Cricket, the chorister of spring, has disappeared. His
pleasant violin has been succeeded by another more pleasant still and
worthy of special study. We shall return to him at an opportune moment.
These then, limiting ourselves to select specimens, are the principal
participants in this musical evening: the Scops-owl, with his
languorous solos; the Toad, that tinkler of sonatas; the Italian
Cricket, who scrapes the first string of a violin; and the Green
Grasshopper, who seems to beat a tiny steel triangle.
We are celebrating to-day, with greater uproar than conviction, the new
era, dating politically from the fall of the Bastille; they, with
glorious indifference to human things, are celebrating the festival of
the sun, singing the happiness of existence, sounding the loud hosanna
of the July heats.
What care they for man and his fickle rejoicings! For whom or for what
will our squibs be spluttering a few years hence? Far-seeing indeed
would he be who could answer the question. Fashions change and bring us
the unexpected. The time-serving rocket spreads its sheaf of sparks for
the public enemy of yesterday, who has become the idol of to-day.
Tomorrow it will go up for somebody else.
In a century or two, will any one, outside the historians, give a
thought to the taking of the Bastille? It is very doubtful. We shall
have other joys and also other cares.
Let us look a little farther ahead. A day will come, so everything
seems to tell us, when, after making progress upon progress, man will
succumb, destroyed by the excess of what he calls civilization. Too
eager to play the god, he cannot hope for the animal's placid
longevity; he will have disappeared when the little Toad is still
saying his litany, in company with the Grasshopper, the Scops-owl and
the others. They were singing on this planet before us; they will sing
after us, celebrating what can never change, the fiery glory of the
sun.
I will dwell no longer on this festival and will become once more the
naturalist, anxious to obtain information concerning the private life
of the insect. The Green Grasshopper (Locusta viridissima, Lin.) does
not appear to be common in my neighbourhood. Last year, intending to
make a study of this insect and finding my efforts to hunt it
fruitless, I was obliged to have recourse to the good offices of a
forest-ranger, who sent me a pair of couples from the Lagarde plateau,
that bleak district where the beech-tree begins its escalade of the
Ventoux.
Now and then freakish fortune takes it into her head to smile upon the
persevering. What was not to be found last year has become almost
common this summer. Without leaving my narrow enclosure, I obtain as
many Grasshoppers as I could wish. I hear them rustling at night in the
green thickets. Let us make the most of the windfall, which perhaps
will not occur again.
In the month of June my treasures are installed, in a sufficient number
of couples, under a wire cover standing on a bed of sand in an earthen
pan. It is indeed a magnificent insect, pale-green all over, with two
whitish stripes running down its sides. Its imposing size, its slim
proportions and its great gauze wings make it the most elegant of our
Locustidae. I am enraptured with my captives. What will they teach me?
We shall see. For the moment, we must feed them.
I offer the prisoners a leaf of lettuce. They bite into it, certainly,
but very sparingly and with a scornful tooth. It soon becomes plain
that I am dealing with half-hearted vegetarians. They want something
else: they are beasts of prey, apparently. But what manner of prey? A
lucky chance taught me.
At break of day I was pacing up and down outside my door, when
something fell from the nearest plane-tree with a shrill grating sound.
I ran up and saw a Grasshopper gutting the belly of a struggling
Cicada. In vain the victim buzzed and waved his limbs: the other did
not let go, dipping her head right into the entrails and rooting them
out by small mouthfuls.
I knew what I wanted to know: the attack had taken place up above,
early in the morning, while the Cicada was asleep; and the plunging of
the poor wretch, dissected alive, had made assailant and assailed fall
in a bundle to the ground. Since then I have repeatedly had occasion to
witness similar carnage.
I have even seen the Grasshopper--the height of audacity, this--dart in
pursuit of a Cicada in mad flight. Even so does the Sparrow-hawk pursue
the Swallow in the sky. But the bird of prey here is inferior to the
insect. It attacks a weaker than itself. The Grasshopper, on the other
hand, assaults a colossus, much larger than herself and stronger; and
nevertheless the result of the unequal fight is not in doubt. The
Grasshopper rarely fails with the sharp pliers of her powerful jaws to
disembowel her capture, which, being unprovided with weapons, confines
itself to crying out and kicking.
The main thing is to retain one's hold of the prize, which is not
difficult in somnolent darkness. Any Cicada encountered by the fierce
Locustid on her nocturnal rounds is bound to die a lamentable death.
This explains those sudden agonized notes which grate through the woods
at late, unseasonable hours, when the cymbals have long been silent.
The murderess in her suit of apple-green has pounced on some sleeping
Cicada.
My boarders' menu is settled: I will feed them on Cicadae. They take
such a liking to this fare that, in two or three weeks, the floor of
the cage is a knacker's yard strewn with heads and empty thoraces, with
torn-off wings and disjointed legs. The belly alone disappears almost
entirely. This is the tit-bit, not very substantial, but extremely
tasty, it would seem. Here, in fact, in the insect's crop, the syrup is
accumulated, the sugary sap which the Cicada's gimlet taps from the
tender bark. Is it because of this dainty that the prey's abdomen is
preferred to any other morsel? It is quite possible.
I do, in fact, with a view to varying the diet, decide to serve up some
very sweet fruits, slices of pear, grape-bits, bits of melon. All this
meets with delighted appreciation. The Green Grasshopper resembles the
English: she dotes on underdone meat seasoned with jelly. This perhaps
is why, on catching the Cicada, she first rips up his paunch, which
supplies a mixture of flesh and preserves.
To eat Cicadae and sugar is not possible in every part of the country.
In the north, where she abounds, the Green Grasshopper would not find
the dish which attracts her so strongly here. She must have other
resources. To convince myself of this, I give her Anoxiae (A. pilosa,
Fab.), the summer equivalent of the spring Cockchafer. The Beetle is
accepted without hesitation. Nothing is left of him but the wing-cases,
head and legs. The result is the same with the magnificent plump Pine
Cockchafer (Melolontha fullo, Lin.), a sumptuous morsel which I find
next day eviscerated by my gang of knackers.
These examples teach us enough. They tell us that the Grasshopper is an
inveterate consumer of insects, especially of those which are not
protected by too hard a cuirass; they are evidence of tastes which are
highly carnivorous, but not exclusively so, like those of the Praying
Mantis, who refuses everything except game. The butcher of the Cicadae
is able to modify an excessively heating diet with vegetable fare.
After meat and blood, sugary fruit-pulp; sometimes even, for lack of
anything better, a little green stuff.
Nevertheless, cannibalism is prevalent. True, I never witness in my
Grasshopper-cages the savagery which is so common in the Praying
Mantis, who harpoons her rivals and devours her lovers; but, if some
weakling succumb, the survivors hardly ever fail to profit by his
carcass as they would in the case of any ordinary prey. With no
scarcity of provisions as an excuse, they feast upon their defunct
companion. For the rest, all the sabre-bearing clan display, in varying
degrees, a propensity for filling their bellies with their maimed
comrades.
In other respects, the Grasshoppers live together very peacefully in my
cages. No serious strife ever takes place among them, nothing beyond a
little rivalry in the matter of food. I hand in a piece of pear. A
Grasshopper alights on it at once. Jealously she kicks away any one
trying to bite at the delicious morsel. Selfishness reigns everywhere.
When she has eaten her fill, she makes way for another, who in her turn
becomes intolerant. One after the other, all the inmates of the
menagerie come and refresh themselves. After cramming their crops, they
scratch the soles of their feet a little with their mandibles, polish
up their forehead and eyes with a leg moistened with spittle and then,
hanging to the trellis-work or lying on the sand in a posture of
contemplation, blissfully they digest and slumber most of the day,
especially during the hottest part of it.
It is in the evening, after sunset, that the troop becomes lively. By
nine o'clock the animation is at its height. With sudden rushes they
clamber to the top of the dome, to descend as hurriedly and climb up
once more. They come and go tumultuously, run and hop around the
circular track and, without stopping, nibble at the good things on the
way.
The males are stridulating by themselves, here and there, teasing the
passing fair with their antennae. The future mothers stroll about
gravely, with their sabre half-raised. The agitation and feverish
excitement means that the great business of pairing is at hand. The
fact will escape no practised eye.
It is also what I particularly wish to observe. My wish is satisfied,
but not fully, for the late hours at which events take place did not
allow me to witness the final act of the wedding. It is late at night
or early in the morning that things happen.
The little that I see is confined to interminable preludes. Standing
face to face, with foreheads almost touching, the lovers feel and sound
each other for a long time with their limp antennae. They suggest two
fencers crossing and recrossing harmless foils. From time to time, the
male stridulates a little, gives a few short strokes of the bow and
then falls silent, feeling perhaps too much overcome to continue.
Eleven o'clock strikes; and the declaration is not yet over. Very
regretfully, but conquered by sleepiness, I quit the couple.
Next morning, early, the female carries, hanging at the bottom of her
ovipositor, a queer bladder-like arrangement, an opaline capsule, the
size of a large pea and roughly subdivided into a small number of
egg-shaped vesicles. When the insect walks, the thing scrapes along the
ground and becomes dirty with sticky grains of sand. The Grasshopper
then makes a banquet off this fertilizing capsule, drains it slowly of
its contents, and devours it bit by bit; for a long time she chews and
rechews the gummy morsel and ends by swallowing it all down. In less
than half a day, the milky burden has disappeared, consumed with zest
down to the last atom.
This inconceivable banquet must be imported, one would think, from
another planet, so far removed is it from earthly habits. What a
singular race are the Locustidae, one of the oldest in the animal
kingdom on dry land and, like the Scolopendra and the Cephalopod,
acting as a belated representative of the manners of antiquity!