THE CLYTHRAE
The Lily-beetle dresses herself: with her ordure she makes herself a
cosy gown, an infamous garment, it is true, but an excellent
protection against parasites and sunstroke. The weaver of faecal cloth
has hardly any imitators. The Hermit-crab dresses himself: he selects
to fit him, from the discarded wardrobe of the Sea-snail, an empty
shell, damaged by the waves; he slips his poor abdomen, which is
incapable of hardening, inside it and leaves outside his great fists
of unequal size, clad in stone boxing-gloves. This is yet another
example rarely followed.
With a few exceptions, all the more remarkable because they are so
rare, the animal, in fact, is not burdened by the need of clothing
itself. Endowed, without having to manufacture a thing, with all that
it wants, it knows nothing of the art of adding defensive extras to
its natural covering.
The bird has no need to take thought of its plumage, the furry beast
of its coat, the reptile of its scales, the Snail of his shell, the
Ground-beetle of his jerkin. They display no ingenuity with the object
of securing protection from the inclemencies of the atmosphere. Hair,
down, scales, mother-of-pearl and other items of the animal's apparel:
these are all produced of their own accord, on an automatic loom.
Man, for his part, is naked; and the severities of the climate oblige
him to wear an artificial skin to protect his own. This poverty has
given rise to one of our most attractive industries.
He invented clothing who, shivering with cold, first thought of
flaying the Bear and covering his shoulders with the brute's hide. In
a distant future this primitive cloak was gradually to be replaced by
cloth, the product of our industry. But under a mild sky the
traditional fig-leaf, the screen of modesty, was for a long while
sufficient. Among peoples remote from civilization, it still suffices
in our day, together with its ornamental complement, the fish-bone
through the cartilage of the nose, the red feather in the hair, the
string round the loins. We must not forget the smear of rancid butter,
which serves to keep off the Mosquito and reminds us of the unguent
employed by the grub that dreads the Tachina.
In the first rank of the animals protected against the bite of the
atmosphere without the intervention of a handicraft are those which go
clad in hair, dressed free of cost in fleeces, furs or pelts. Some of
these natural coats are magnificent, surpassing our downiest velvets
in softness.
Despite the progress of weaving, man is still jealous of them. To-day,
as in the ages when he sheltered under a rock, he values furs greatly
for the winter. At all seasons he holds them in high esteem as
ornamental accessories; he glories in sewing on his attire a shred of
some wretched flayed beast. The ermine of kings and judges, the white
rabbit-tails with which the university graduate adorns his left
shoulder on solemn occasions carry us back in thought to the age of
the cave-dwellers.
Moreover, the fleecy animals still clothe us in a less primitive
fashion. Our woollens are made of hairs interlaced. Ever since the
beginning, without hoping to find anything better, man has clothed
himself at the expense of the hairy orders of creation.
The bird, a more active producer of heat, whose maintenance is a more
delicate matter, covers itself with feathers, which overlap evenly,
and puts round its body a thick cushion of air on a bed of down. It
has on its tail a pot of cosmetic, a bottle of hair-oil, a fatty gland
from which the beak obtains an ointment wherewith it preens the
feathers one by one and renders them impermeable to moisture. A great
expender of energy by reason of the exigencies of flight, it is
essentially, chilly creature that it is, better-adapted than any other
to the retention of heat.
For the slow-moving reptile the scales suffice, preserving it from
hurtful contacts, but playing hardly any part as a bulwark against
changes of temperature.
In its liquid environment, which is far more constant than the air,
the fish requires no more. Without effort on its part, without violent
expenditure of motor force, the swimmer is borne up by the mere
pressure of the water. A bath whose temperature varies but little
enables it to live in ignorance of excessive cold or heat.
In the same way, the mollusc, for the most part a denizen of the seas,
leads a blissful life in its shell, which is a defensive fortress
rather than a garment. Lastly the crustacean confines itself to making
a suit of armour out of its mineral skin.
In all these, from the hairy to the crustaceous, the real coat, the
coat turned out by a special industry, does not exist. Hair, fur,
feather, scale, shell, stony armour require no intervention of the
wearer; they are natural products, not the artificial creations of the
animal. To find clothiers able to place upon their backs that which
their organization refuses them, we must descend from man to certain
insects.
Ridiculous attire, of which we are so proud, made from the slaver of a
caterpillar or the fleece of a silly sheep: among its inventors the
first and foremost is the Crioceris-larva, with its jacket of dung! In
the art of clothing itself, it preceded the Eskimo, who scrapes the
bowels of the seal to make himself a suit of dittos; it forestalled
our ancestor the troglodyte, who borrowed the fur-coat of his
contemporary the Cave-bear. We had not got beyond the fig-leaf, when
the Crioceris already excelled in the manufacture of homespun, both
providing the raw material and piecing it together.
For reasons of economy and easy acquisition, its disgusting method,
but with very elegant modifications, suits the clan of the Clythrae
and Cryptocephali, those pretty and magnificently coloured Beetles.
Their larva, a naked little grub, makes itself a long, narrow pot, in
which it lives just like the Snail in his shell. As a coat and as a
dwelling the timid creature makes use of a jar, better still, of a
graceful vase, the product of its industry.
Once inside, it never comes out. If anything alarms it, with a sudden
recoil it withdraws completely into its urn, the opening of which is
closed with the disk formed by the flat top of the head. When quiet is
restored, it ventures to put out its head and the three segments with
legs to them, but is very careful to keep the rest, which is more
delicate and fastened to the back, inside.
With tiny steps, weighted by the burden, it makes its way along,
lifting its earthenware container behind it in a slanting position. It
makes one think of Diogenes, dragging his house, a terra-cotta tub,
about with him. The thing is rather unwieldy, because of the weight,
and is liable to heel over, owing to the excessive height of the
centre of gravity. It makes progress all the same, tilting like a
busby rakishly cocked over one ear. One of our Land-snails, the
Bulimus, whose shell is continued into a turret, moves almost in the
same fashion, tumbling repeatedly as he goes.
The Clythra's is a shapely jar and does credit to the insect's art of
pottery. It is firm to the touch, of earthy appearance and smooth as
stucco inside, while the outside is relieved by delicate diagonal,
symmetrical ribs, which are the traces of successive enlargements. The
back part is slightly dilated and is rounded off at the end with two
slight bumps. These two terminal projections, with the central furrow
which divides them, and the ribs marking additions, which match on
either side, are evidence of work done in two parts, in which the
artist has followed the rules of symmetry, the first condition of the
beautiful.
The front part is of rather smaller diameter and is cut off on a
slant, which enables the jar to be lifted and supported on the larva's
back as it moves. Lastly, the mouth is circular, with a blunt edge.
Any one finding one of these jars for the first time, among the stones
at the foot of an oak, and wondering what its origin could be, would
be greatly puzzled. Is it the stone of some unknown fruit, emptied of
its kernel by the patient tooth of the Field-mouse? Is it the capsule
of a plant, from which the lid has dropped, allowing the seeds to
fall? It has all the accuracy, all the elegance of the masterpieces of
the vegetable kingdom.
After learning the origin of the object, he would be no less doubtful
as to the nature of the materials, or rather of their cement. Water
will not soften, will not disintegrate the shell. This must be so,
else the first shower of rain would reduce the grub's garment to pulp.
Fire does not affect it greatly either. When exposed to the flame of a
candle, the jar, without changing shape, loses its brown colour and
assumes the tint of burnt ferruginous earth. The groundwork of the
material therefore is of a mineral nature. It remains for us to
discover what the cement can be that gives the earthy element its
brown colour, holds it together and makes it solid.
The grub is ever on its guard. At the least flurry, it shrinks into
its shell and does not budge for a long time. Let us be as patient as
the grub. We shall surely, some day or other, manage to surprise it at
work. And indeed I do. It suddenly backs into its jar, disappearing
inside entirely. In a moment it reappears, carrying a brown pellet in
its mandibles. It kneads the pellet and works it up with a little
earth gathered on the threshold of its dwelling; it softens the
mixture as required and then spreads it artistically in a thin strip
on the edge of the sheath.
The legs take no part in the job. Only the mandibles and the palpi
work, acting as tub, trowel, beater and roller in one.
Once more the grub backs into its shell: once more it returns,
bringing a second clod, which is prepared and used in the same manner.
Five or six times over, it repeats the process, until the whole
circumference of the mouth has been increased by the addition of a
rim.
The potter's compound, as we have seen, consists of two ingredients.
One of these, the first earth that comes to hand, is collected on the
threshold of the workshop; the other is fetched from inside the pot,
for, each time that the grub returns, I see it carrying a brown pellet
in its teeth. What does it keep in the back-shop? Though we can
scarcely find out by direct observation, we can at least guess.
Observe that the jar is absolutely closed behind, without the smallest
waste-pipe by which the physiological needs from which the grub is
certainly not immune can be relieved. The grub is boxed in and never
stirs out of doors. What becomes of its excretions? Well, they are
evacuated at the bottom of the pot. By a gentle movement of the rump,
the product is spread upon the walls, strengthening the coat and
giving it a velvet lining.
It is better than a lining; it is a precious store of putty. When the
grub wants to repair its shell or to enlarge it to fit its figure,
which increases daily, it proceeds to clean out its cess-pool. It
turns round and, with the tips of its mandibles, collects singly, from
the back, the brown pellets which it has only to work up with a little
earth to make a ceramic paste of the highest quality.
Observe also that the grub's pottery is shaped like the legs of our
peg-top trousers and is wider inside than at the opening. This
excessive girth has its obvious use. It enables the animal to bend and
turn when the contents of the cess-pit are needed for a fresh course
of masonry.
A garment should be neither too short nor too tight. It is not enough
to add a piece which lengthens it as the body grows longer; we must
also see that it has sufficient fulness not to hamper the wearer and
to give him liberty of movement.
The Snail and all the molluscs with turbinate shells increase the
diameter of their corkscrew staircase by degrees, so that the last
whorl is always an exact measure of their actual condition. The lower
whorls, those of childhood, when they become too narrow, are not
abandoned, it is true; they become lumber-rooms in which the organs of
least importance to active life find shelter, drawn out into a slender
appendage. The essential portion of the animal is lodged in the upper
story, which increases in capacity.
The big Broken Bulimus, that lover of crumbling walls and limestone
rocks leaning in the sun, sacrifices the graces of symmetry to
utility. When the lower spirals are no longer wide enough, he abandons
them altogether and moves higher up, into the spacious staircase of
recent formation. He closes the occupied part with a stout
partition-wall at the back; then, dashing against the sharp stones, he
chips off the superfluous portion, the hovel not fit to live in. The
broken shell loses its accurate form in the process, but gains in
lightness.
The Clythra does not employ the Bulimus' method. It also disdains that
of our dressmakers, who split the overtight garment and let in a piece
of suitable width between the edges of the opening. To break the jar
when it becomes too small would be a wilful waste of material; to
split it lengthwise and increase its capacity by inserting a strip
would be an imprudent expedient, which would expose the occupant to
danger during the slow work of repair. The hermit of the jar can do
better than that. It knows how to enlarge its gown while leaving it,
except for its fulness, as it was before.
Its paradoxical method is this: of the lining it makes cloth, bringing
to the outside what was inside. Little by little, as the need makes
itself felt, the grub scrapes and strips the interior of its cell.
Reduced to a soft paste by means of a little putty furnished by the
intestine, the scrapings are applied over the whole of the outer
surface, down to the far end, which the grub, thanks to its perfect
flexibility, is able to reach without taking too much trouble or
leaving its house.
This turning of the coat is accomplished with a delicate precision
which preserves the symmetrical arrangement of the ornamental ridges;
lastly, it increases the capacity by a gradual transfer of the
material from the inside to the outside. This method of renewing the
old coat is so accurate that nothing is thrown aside, nothing treated
as useless, not even the baby-wear, which remains encrusted in the
keystone at the original top of the structure.
If fresh materials were not added, obviously the jar would gain in
size at the cost of thickness. The shell would become too thin, by
dint of being turned in order to make space, and would sooner or later
lack the requisite solidity. The grub guards against that. It has in
front of it as much earth as it can wish for; it keeps putty in a
back-shop; and the factory which produces it never slacks work. There
is nothing to prevent it from thickening the structure at will and
adding as much material as it thinks proper to the inner scrapings
from the shell.
Invariably clad in a garment that is an exact fit, neither too loose
nor too tight, the grub, when the cold weather comes, closes the mouth
of its earthenware jar with a lid of the same mixed compound, a paste
of earth and stercoral cement. It then turns round and makes its
preparations for the metamorphosis, with its head at the back of the
pot and its stern near the entrance, which will not be opened again.
It reaches the adult stage in April and May, when the ilex becomes
covered with tender shoots, and emerges from its shell by breaking
open the hinder end. Now come the days of revelry on the leafage, in
the mild morning sun.
The Clythra's jar is a piece of work entailing no little delicacy of
execution. I can quite well see how the grub lengthens and enlarges
it; but I cannot imagine how it begins it. If it has nothing to serve
as a mould and a base, how does it set to work to assemble the first
layers of paste into a neatly-shaped cup?
Our potters have their lathe, the tray which keeps the work rotating
and implements to determine its outline. Could the Clythra, an
exceptional ceramic artist, work without a base and without a guide?
It strikes me as an insurmountable difficulty. I know the insect to be
capable of many remarkable industrial feats; but, before admitting
that the jar can be based on nothing, we should have to see the
new-born artist at work. Perhaps it has resources bequeathed to it by
its mother; perhaps the egg presents peculiarities which will solve
the riddle. Let us rear the insect, collect its eggs; then the pottery
will tell us the secret of its beginnings.
I install three species of Clythrae under wire-gauze covers, each with
a bed of sand and a bottle of water containing a few young
ilex-shoots, which I renew as and when they fade. All three species
are common on the holm-oak: they are the Long-legged Clythra (_C.
longipes_, FAB.), the Four-spotted Clythra (_C. quadripunctata_,
LIN.), and the Taxicorn Clythra (_C. taxicornis_, FAB.).
I set up a second menagerie with some Cryptocephali, who are closely
related to the Clythrae. The inmates are the Ilex Cryptocephalus (_C.
ilicis_, OLIV.), the Two-spotted Cryptocephalus (_C. bipunctatus_,
LIN.) and the Golden Cryptocephalus (_C. hypochoeridis_, LIN.), who
wears a resplendent costume. For the first two I provide sprigs of
ilex; for the third, the heads of a centaury (_Centaurea aspera_),
which is the favourite plant of this living gem.
There is nothing striking in the habits of my captives, who spend the
morning very quietly, the first five browsing on their oak-leaves and
the sixth on her centaury-blooms. When the sun grows hot, they fly
from the bunch of leaves in the centre to the wire trellis and back
from the trellis to the leaves, or wander about the top of the cage in
a state of great excitement.
Every moment couples are formed. They pester each other, pair without
preliminaries, part without regrets and begin elsewhere all over
again. Life is sweet; and there are enough for all to choose from.
Several are persistent. Mounted on the back of the patient female, who
lowers her head and seems untouched by the passionate storm, they
shake her violently. Thus do the amorous insects declare their flame
and win the consent of the hesitating fair.
The attitude of the couple now tells us the use of a certain organic
detail peculiar to the Clythra. In several species, though not in all,
the males' fore-legs are of inordinate length. What is the object of
these extravagant arms, these curious grappling-irons out of all
proportion to the insect's size? The Grasshoppers and Locusts prolong
their hind-legs into levers to assist them in leaping. There is
nothing of the sort here: it is the fore-legs which are exaggerated;
and their excessive length has nothing to do with locomotion. The
insect, whether resting or walking, seems even to be embarrassed by
these outrageous stilts, which it bends awkwardly and tucks away as
best it can, not knowing exactly what to do with them.
But wait for the pairing; and the extravagant becomes reasonable. The
couple take up their pose in the form of a T. The male, standing
perpendicularly, or nearly, represents the cross-piece and the female
the shaft of the letter, lying on its side. To steady his attitude,
which is so contrary to the usual position in pairing, the male flings
out his long grappling-hooks, two sheet-anchors which grip the
female's shoulders, the fore-edge of her corselet, or even her head.
At this moment, the only moment that counts in the adult insect's
life, it is a good thing indeed to possess long arms, long hands, like
_Clythra longimana_ and _C. longipes_, as the scientific nomenclature
calls them. Although their names are silent on the subject, the
Taxicorn Clythra and the Six-spotted Clythra (_C. sexmaculata_, FAB.)
and many others also have recourse to the same means of equilibrium:
their fore-legs are utterly exaggerated.
Is the difficulty of pairing in a transversal position the explanation
of the long grappling-irons thrown out to a distance? We will not be
too certain, for here is the Four-spotted Clythra, who would flatly
contradict us. The male has fore-legs of modest dimensions, in
conformity with the usual rules; he places himself crosswise like the
others and nevertheless achieves his ends without hindrance. He finds
it enough to modify slightly the gymnastics of his embrace. The same
may be said of the different Cryptocephali, who all have stumpy limbs.
Wherever we look, we find special resources, known to some and unknown
to others.