THE VOLUCELLA
Underneath the brown-paper manor-house, let us once more say, the
ground is channelled into a sort of drain for the refuse of the nest.
Here are shot the dead or weakly larvæ which a continual inspection
roots out from the cells to make room for fresh occupants; here, at the
time of the autumn massacre, are flung the backward grubs; here,
lastly, lies a good part of the crowd killed by the first touch of
winter. During the rack and ruin of November and December, this sewer
becomes crammed with animal matter.
Such riches will not remain unemployed. The world’s great law which
says that nothing edible shall be wasted provides for the consumption
of a mere ball of hair disgorged by the Owl. How shall it be with the
vast stores of a ruined Wasps’-nest! If they have not come yet, the
consumers whose task it is to salve this abundant wreckage for nature’s
markets, they will not tarry in coming and waiting for the manna that
will soon descend from above. That public granary, lavishly stocked by
death, will become a busy factory of fresh life. Who are the guests
summoned to the banquet?
If the Wasps flew away, carrying the dead or sickly grubs with them,
and dropped them on the ground round about their home, those banqueters
would be, first and foremost, the insect-eating birds, the Warblers,
all of whom are lovers of small game. In this connection, we will allow
ourselves a brief digression.
Everybody knows with what jealous intolerance the Nightingales occupy
each his own cantonment. Neighbourly intercourse among them is tabooed.
The males frequently exchange defiant couplets at a distance; but,
should the challenged party draw near, the challenger makes him clear
off. Now, not far from my house, in a scanty clump of holly-oaks which
would barely give a wood-cutter the wherewithal to make a dozen
faggots, I used, all through the spring, to hear such full-throated
warbling of Nightingales that the songs of these virtuosi, all giving
voice at once and with no attempt at order, degenerated into a
deafening hubbub.
Why did those passionate devotees of solitude come and settle in such
large numbers at a spot where custom decrees that there is just room
for one household only? What reasons have turned the recluse into a
congregation? I asked the owner of the spinney about the matter.
“It’s like that every year,” he said. “The clump is overrun by
Nightingales.”
“And the reason?”
“The reason is that there is a stand of hives close by, behind that
wall.”
I looked at the man in amazement, unable to understand what connection
there could be between a stand of hives and the thronging Nightingales.
“Why, yes,” he added, “there are a lot of Nightingales because there
are a lot of Bees.”
Another questioning look from my side. I did not yet understand. The
explanation came:
“The Bees,” he said, “throw out their dead grubs. The front of the
stand is strewn with them in the mornings; and the Nightingales come
and collect them for themselves and their families. They are very fond
of them.”
This time I had solved the puzzle. Delicious food, abundant and fresh
each day, had brought the songsters together. Contrary to their habit,
numbers of Nightingales are living on friendly terms in a cluster of
bushes, in order to be near the hives and to have a larger share in the
morning distribution of plump dainties.
In the same way, the Nightingale and his gastronomical rivals would
haunt the neighbourhood of the Wasps’-nests, if the dead grubs were
cast out on the surface of the soil; but these delicacies fall inside
the burrow and no little bird would dare to enter the murky cave, even
if the entrance were not too small to admit it. Other consumers are
needed here, small in size and great in daring; the Fly is called for
and her maggot, the king of the departed. What the Greenbottles,
Bluebottles and Flesh-flies [74] do in the open air, at the expense of
every kind of corpse, other Flies, narrowing their province, do
underground at the Wasps’ expense.
Let us turn our attention, in September, to the wrapper of a
Wasps’-nest. On the outer surface and there alone, this wrapper is
strewn with a multitude of big, white, oval dots, firmly fixed to the
brown paper and measuring roughly one-tenth of an inch long by
one-sixteenth of an inch wide. Flat below, convex above and of a
lustrous white, these dots resemble very neat drops from a tallow
candle. Lastly, their backs are streaked with faint transversal lines,
an elegant detail perceptible only with the lens. These curious objects
are scattered all over the surface of the wrapper, sometimes at a
distance from one another, sometimes gathered into more or less dense
groups. They are the eggs of the Volucella, or Bumble-bee Fly (V.
zonaria, Poda).
Also stuck to the brown paper of the outer envelope and mixed up with
the Volucella’s are a large number of other eggs, chalk-white,
spear-shaped and ridged lengthwise with seven or eight thin ribs, after
the manner of the seeds of certain Umbelliferæ. The finishing touch to
their delicate beauty is the fine stippling all over the surface. They
are smaller by half than the others. I have seen grubs come out of them
which might easily be the earliest stage of some pointed maggots which
I have already noticed in the burrows. My attempts to rear them failed;
and I am not able to say to which Fly these eggs belong. Enough for us
to note the nameless one in passing. There are plenty of others, which
we must make up our minds to leave unlabelled, in view of the jumbled
crowd of feasters in the ruined Wasps’-nest. We will concern ourselves
only with the most remarkable, in the front rank of which stands the
Volucella.
She is a gorgeous and powerful Fly; and her costume, with its brown and
yellow bands, shows a vague resemblance to that of the Wasps. Our
fashionable theorists have availed themselves of this brown and yellow
to cite the Volucella as a striking instance of protective mimicry.
Obliged, if not on her own behalf, at least on that of her family, to
introduce herself as a parasite into the Wasp’s home, she resorts, they
tell us, to trickery and craftily dons her victim’s livery. Once inside
the Wasps’-nest, she is taken for one of the inhabitants and attends
quietly to her business.
The simplicity of the Wasp, duped by a very clumsy imitation of her
garb, and the depravity of the Fly, concealing her identity under a
counterfeit presentment, exceed the limits of my credulity. The Wasp is
not so silly nor the Volucella so clever as we are assured. If the
latter really meant to deceive the Wasp by her appearance, we must
admit that her disguise is none too successful. Yellow sashes round the
abdomen do not make a Wasp. It would need more than that and, above
all, a slender figure and a nimble carriage; and the Volucella is
thickset and corpulent and sedate in her movements. Never will the Wasp
take that unwieldly insect for one of her own kind. The difference is
too great.
Poor Volucella, mimesis has not taught you enough! You ought—this is
the essential point—to have adopted a Wasp’s shape and you forgot to do
so; you remained a fat Fly, far too easily recognized. Nevertheless,
you penetrate into the terrible cavern; you are able to stay there for
a long time, without danger, as the eggs profusely strewn on the
wrapper of the Wasps’-nest show. How do you set about it?
Let us, first of all, remember that the Volucella does not enter the
enclosure in which the combs are stacked: she keeps to the outer
surface of the paper rampart and there lays her eggs. Let us, on the
other hand, recall the Polistes placed in the company of the Wasps in
my breeding-cage. Here of a surety is one who need not have recourse to
mimicry to find acceptance. She belongs to the guild, she is a Wasp
herself. Any of us that had not the trained eye of the entomologist
would confuse the two species. Well, this stranger, so long as she does
not become too importunate, is quite readily tolerated by the caged
Wasps. None seeks to pick a quarrel with her. She is even admitted to
the table, the strip of paper smeared with honey. But she is doomed if
she inadvertently sets foot upon the combs. Her costume, her shape, her
size, which tally almost exactly with the costume, shape and size of
the Wasp, do not save her from her fate. She is at once recognized as a
stranger and attacked and slaughtered with the same vigour as the larvæ
of the Hylotoma and the Saperda, neither of which bears any outward
resemblance to the Wasps.
If identity of shape and costume do not save the Polistes, how will the
Volucella fare, with her clumsy imitation? The Wasp’s eye, which is
able to discern the dissimilar in the like, will refuse to be caught.
The moment she is recognized, the stranger is killed on the spot. As to
that there is not the shadow of a doubt.
In the absence of Volucellæ at the moment of experimenting, I employ
another Fly, Milesia fulminans, who, thanks to her slim figure and her
handsome yellow bands, presents a much more striking likeness to the
Wasp than does the fat V. zonaria. Despite this resemblance, if she
rashly venture on the combs, she is stabbed and slain. Her yellow
sashes, her slender abdomen deceive nobody. The stranger is recognized
behind the features of a double.
My experiments under wire-gauze, which vary according to the captures
which I happen to make, all lead me to this conclusion: so long as
there is mere propinquity, even around the honey, the other prisoners
are tolerated fairly well; but, if they touch the cells, they are
assaulted and often killed, without distinction of shape or costume.
The grubs’ dormitory is the sanctum sanctorum which no outsider must
enter under pain of death.
With these caged captives I experiment by daylight, whereas the free
Wasps work in the absolute darkness of their crypt. Where light is
absent, colour goes for nothing. Once, therefore, that she has entered
the cavern, the Volucella derives no benefit from her yellow bands,
which are supposed to be her safeguard. Whether garbed as she is or
otherwise, it is easy for her to effect her purpose in the dark, on
condition that she avoid the tumultuous interior of the Wasps’-nest. So
long as she has the prudence not to hustle the passers-by, she can dab
her eggs, without danger, on the paper wall. No one will know of her
presence. The dangerous thing is to cross the threshold of the burrow
in broad daylight, before the eyes of those who go in and out. At that
moment alone, protective mimicry would be convenient. Now does the
entrance of the Volucella into the presence of a few Wasps entail such
very great risks? The Wasps’-nest in my enclosure, the one which was
afterwards to perish under a bell-glass in the sun, gave me the
opportunity for prolonged observations, but without any result upon the
subject of my immediate concern. The Volucella did not appear. The
period for her visits had doubtless passed; for I found plenty of her
grubs when the nest was dug up.
Other Flies rewarded me for my assiduity. I saw some—at a respectful
distance, I need hardly say—entering the burrow. They were
insignificant in size and of a dark-grey colour, not unlike that of the
House-fly. They had not a patch of yellow about them and certainly had
no claim to protective mimicry. Nevertheless, they went in and out as
they pleased, calmly, as though they were at home. So long as there was
not too great a number at the door, the Wasps left them alone. When
there was anything of a crowd, the grey visitors waited near the
threshold for a less busy moment. No harm came to them.
Inside the establishment, the same peaceful relations prevail. In this
respect I have the evidence of my excavations. In the underground
charnel-house, so rich in Fly-grubs, I find no corpses of adult Flies.
If the strangers were slaughtered in passing through the entrance-hall
or lower down, they would fall to the bottom of the burrow
promiscuously with the other rubbish. Now in this charnel-pit, as I
said, there are never any dead Volucellæ, never a Fly of any sort. The
incomers, therefore, are respected. Having done their business, they go
out unscathed.
This tolerance on the part of the Wasps is surprising. And a suspicion
comes to one’s mind: can it be that the Volucella and the rest are not
what the accepted theories of natural history call them, namely,
enemies, grub-killers sacking the Wasps’-nest? We will look into this
by examining them when they are hatched. Nothing is easier, in
September and October, than to collect the Volucella’s eggs in such
numbers as we please. They abound on the outer surface of the
Wasps’-nest. Moreover, as with the larvæ of the Wasp, it is some time
before they are suffocated by the petrol; and the great majority are
sure to hatch. I take my scissors, cut the most densely-populated bits
from the paper wall of the nest and fill a jar with them. This is the
warehouse from which I shall daily, for the best part of the next two
months, draw my supply of infant grubs.
The Volucella’s egg remains where it is, with its white colouring
strongly marked against the grey background of the support; The shell
wrinkles and collapses; and the fore-end tears open. From it there
issues a pretty little white grub, thin in front, widening slightly in
the rear and bristling all over with fleshy papillæ. These papillæ are
set, on the creature’s sides, like the teeth of a comb; at the rear,
they lengthen and spread into a fan; on the back, they are shorter and
arranged in four longitudinal rows. The last segment but one carries
two short, bright-red breathing-tubes, standing aslant and joined to
each other. The forepart, near the pointed mouth, is of a darker,
brownish colour. This is the biting- and motor-apparatus, seen through
the skin and consisting of two fang’s. Taken all round, the grub is a
comely little thing, with its bristling whiteness, which gives it the
appearance of a tiny snow-flake. But this elegance does not last long:
grown big and strong, the Volucella’s grub becomes soiled with sanies,
turns russet-brown and crawls about in the guise of a hulking
Porcupine.
What becomes of it when it leaves the egg? This my warehousing-jar
tells me, partly. Unable to keep its balance on sloping surfaces, it
drops to the bottom of the receptacle, where I find it daily, as and
when hatched, restlessly wandering. Things must happen likewise at the
Wasps’. Incapable of standing on the slant of the paper wall, the
new-born grubs slide to the bottom of the underground cavity, which
contains, especially at the end of the summer, a plentiful provender of
deceased Wasps and dead larvæ removed from the cells and flung outside,
all nice and gamy, as proper maggot’s-food should be.
The Volucella’s offspring, themselves maggots, notwithstanding their
snowy apparel, find in this charnel-house victuals to their liking,
incessantly renewed. Their fall from the high walls might well be not
accidental but rather a means of reaching, quickly and without
searching, the good things down at the bottom of the cavern. Perhaps,
also, some of the white grubs, thanks to the holes that make the
wrapper resemble a spongy cover, manage to slip inside the Wasps’-nest.
Still, most of the Volucella’s larvæ, at whatever stage of their
development, are in the basement of the burrow, among the carrion
remains. The others, those settled in the Wasps’ home itself, are
comparatively few.
These returns are enough to show us that the grubs of the Volucella do
not deserve the bad reputation that has been given them. Satisfied with
the spoils of the dead, they do not touch the living; they do not
ravage the Wasps’-nest, they disinfect it.
Experiment confirms what we have learnt in the actual nests. Over and
over again, I bring Wasp-grubs and Volucella-grubs together in small
test-tubes, which are easy to observe. The first are well and strong; I
have just taken them from their cells. The others are in various
stages, from that of the snow-flake born the same day to that of the
sturdy Porcupine.
There is nothing tragic about the encounter. The Flies’ grubs roam
about the test-tube without touching the live tit-bit. The most that
they do is to put their mouths for a moment to the morsel; then they
take it away again, not caring for the dish.
They want something different: a wounded, a dying creature; a corpse
dissolving into sanies. Indeed, if I prick the Wasp-grub with a needle,
the scornful ones immediately come and sup at the bleeding wound. If I
give them a dead larva, brown with putrefaction, the grubs rip it open
and feast on its humours. Better still: I can feed them quite
satisfactorily with Wasps that have turned putrid under their horny
rings; I see them greedily suck the juices of decomposing
Cetonia-larvæ; I can keep them thriving with chopped-up butcher’s meat,
which they know how to liquefy by the method of the common maggot. And
these unprejudiced ones, who accept whatever comes their way, provided
that it be dead, refuse it when it is alive. Like the true Flies and
frank body-snatchers that they are, they wait, before touching a
morsel, for death to do its work.
Inside the Wasps’-nest, robust larvæ are the rule and weaklings the
rare exception, because of the assiduous supervision which eliminates
anything that is like to die. Here, nevertheless, Volucella-grubs are
found, on the combs, among the busy Wasps. They are not, it is true, so
numerous as in the charnel-house below, but still they are pretty
frequent. Now what do they do in this abode where there are no corpses?
Do they attack the healthy? Their continual visits from cell to cell
would at first make one think so; but we shall soon be undeceived if we
observe their movements closely; and this is possible with my caged
colonies.
I see them fussily crawling on the surface of the combs, swaying their
necks from side to side and taking stock of the cells. This one does
not suit, nor that one either; the bristly creature passes on, still in
quest of something, thrusting its pointed fore-part now here, now
there. This time, the cell appears to fulfil the requisite conditions.
A larva, glowing with health, opens wide its mouth, believing its nurse
to be approaching. It fills the hexagonal chamber with its bulging
sides.
The gluttonous visitor bends and slips its slender fore-part, a blade
of exquisite suppleness, between the wall and the inhabitant, whose
slack rotundity yields to the pressure of this animated wedge. It
plunges into the cell, leaving no part of itself outside but its wide
hind-quarters, with the red dots of the two breathing-tubes.
It remains in this posture for some time, occupied with its work at the
bottom of the cell. Meanwhile, the Wasps present remain impassive, do
not interfere, a clear proof that the grub visited is in no peril. The
stranger, in fact, retires with a soft, gliding motion. The chubby
babe, a sort of india-rubber bag, resumes its original volume without
having suffered any harm, as its appetite soon shows. A nurse offers it
a mouthful, which it accepts with every sign of unimpaired vigour. As
for the Volucella-grub, it licks its lips for a few moments after its
own fashion, pushing its two fangs in and out; then, without further
loss of time, it goes and repeats its probing elsewhere.
What it wants down there, at the bottom of the cells, behind the grubs,
cannot be decided by direct observation; it must be guessed at. Since
the visited larva remains intact, it is not prey that the Volucella’s
grub is after. Besides, if murder formed part of its plans, why dive to
the bottom of the cell, instead of attacking the defenceless recluse
straightway? It would be much easier to suck the patient’s juices
through the actual orifice of the cell. Instead of that, we see a dip,
always a dip and never any other tactics.
Then what is there behind the Wasp-grub? Let us try to word all this as
decently as we can. In spite of its exceeding cleanliness, the grub is
not exempt from the physiological ills inseparable from the work of the
stomach. Like all that eats, it has intestinal waste matter in regard
to which its confinement compels it to behave with extreme discretion.
Like so many other close-cabined larvæ of Wasps and Bees, it waits
until the moment of the transformation to rid itself of its digestive
refuse. Then, once and for all, it casts out the unclean accumulation
whereof the pupa, that delicate, reborn organism, must not retain the
least trace. This is found later, in any empty cell, in the form of a
dark-purple plug. But, without waiting for this final purge, this lump,
there are, from time to time, slight excretions of fluid, clear as
water. We have only to keep a Wasp-grub in a little glass tube to
recognize these occasional discharges. Well, I see nothing else to
explain the action of the Volucella’s grubs when they dip into the
cells without wounding the larvæ. They are looking for this liquid,
they provoke its emission. It represents to them a dainty which they
enjoy over and above the more substantial fare provided by the corpses.
The Volucella, that sanitary inspector of the Vespian city, fulfils a
double office: she gives the Wasp’s children a wipe down; and she rids
the Wasps’-nest of its dead. For this reason, she is peacefully
received, as an assistant, when she enters the burrow to lay her eggs
there; for this reason, her grub is tolerated, nay more, respected, in
the very heart of the dwelling, where none might stray with impunity. I
remember the brutal welcome accorded to the Saperda- and Hylotoma-larvæ
when I place them upon a comb. Forthwith grabbed, bruised and riddled
with stings, the poor wretches perish. It is quite a different matter
with the offspring of the Volucella. They come and go as they please,
poke about in the cells, elbow the inhabitants and remain unmolested.
Let us give some instances of this clemency, which is very strange in
the irascible Wasp.
For a couple of hours, I fix my attention on a Volucella-grub
established in a cell, side by side with the Wasp-grub, the mistress of
the house. The hind-quarters emerge, displaying their papillæ.
Sometimes also the pointed fore-part, the head, appears, bending from
side to side with sudden, Snake-like motions. The Wasps have just
filled their crops at the honey-puddle; they are dispensing the
rations, are very busily at work; and these things are taking place in
broad daylight, on my table, by the window.
As they pass from cell to cell, the nurses repeatedly brush against and
stride across the Volucella-grub. There is no doubt that they see it.
The intruder does not budge, or, if trodden on, retires inside, only to
reappear the next moment. Some of the Wasps stop, bend their heads over
the opening, seem to be making enquiries and then go off, without
troubling further about the state of things. One of them does something
even more remarkable: she tries to give a mouthful to the lawful
occupant of the cell; but the larva, which is being squeezed by its
visitor, has no appetite and refuses. Without the least sign of anxiety
on behalf of the nurseling which she has seen in awkward company, the
Wasp retires and goes to distribute her ration elsewhere.
In vain I prolong my examination: there is no fluster of any kind. The
Volucella-grub is treated as a friend, or at least as a visitor that
does not matter. There is no attempt to dislodge it, to worry it, to
put it to flight. Nor does the grub seem to trouble greatly about those
who come and go. Its tranquillity tells us that it feels at home.
Here is some further evidence: the grub has plunged, head downwards,
into an empty cell, which is too small to contain the whole of it. Its
hind-quarters stick out, very visibly. For long hours it remains
motionless in this position. At every moment Wasps pass and repass
close by. Three of them, at one time together, at another separately,
come and nibble at the edges of the cell; they break off particles
which they reduce to paste for a new piece of work.
The passers-by, intent upon their business, may not perceive the
intruder; but these three certainly do. During their work of
demolition, they touch the grub with their legs, their antennæ, their
palpi; and yet none of them minds it. The fat grub, so easily
recognized by its queer figure, is left alone; and this in broad
daylight, where everybody can see it. What must it be when the profound
darkness of the burrows protects the visitor with its mysteries!
I have been experimenting all along with big Volucella-grubs, coloured
with the dirty red that comes with age. What effect will pure white
produce? I sprinkle on the surface of the combs some larvæ that have
lately left the egg. The tiny, snow-white grubs make for the nearest
cells, go down into them, come out again and hunt about elsewhere. The
Wasps peaceably let them go their way, as heedless of the little white
invaders as of the big red ones. Sometimes, when it enters an occupied
cell, the little creature is seized by the owner, the Wasp-grub, which
nabs it and turns it over and over in its mandibles. Is this a
defensive bite? No, the Wasp-grub has merely blundered, taking its
visitor for a proffered mouthful. There is no great harm done. Thanks
to its litheness, the little grub escapes intact from the grip and
continues its investigations.
It might occur to us to attribute this tolerance to some lack of
penetration in the Wasps’ vision. What follows will undeceive us: I
place separately, in empty cells, a larva of the Scalary Saperda and a
Volucella-larva, both of them white and selected so as not to fill the
cell entirely. Their presence is revealed only by the paleness of the
hind-part, which serves as a plug to the opening. A superficial
examination would leave the nature of the recluse undecided. The Wasps
make no mistake: they extirpate the Saperda-grub, kill it, throw it
into the rubbish-pit; they leave the Volucella-grub in peace.
The two strangers are quite well recognized in the secrecy of the
cells: one is the intruder that must be turned out; the other is the
regular visitor that must be respected. Sight helps, for things take
place in the daylight, under my cage; but the Wasps have other means of
information in the dimness of the burrow. When I produce darkness by
covering the apparatus with a screen, the murder of the trespassers is
accomplished just the same. For so say the police-regulations of the
Wasps’-nest: any stranger discovered must be slain and thrown on the
midden.
To thwart this vigilance, the real enemies need to be masters of the
art of stealthy immobility and cunning dissimulation. But there is no
dissimulation about the Volucella-grub. It comes and goes, openly,
wheresoever it will; it looks round amongst the Wasps for cells to suit
it. What has it to make itself thus respected? Strength? Certainly not.
It is a harmless creature, which the Wasp could rip open with a blow of
her shears, while a touch of the sting would mean lightning death. It
is a familiar guest, to whom no denizen of a Wasp’-nest bears ill-will.
Why? Because it renders good service: so far from working mischief, it
does the scavenging. Were it an enemy or merely an intruder, it would
be exterminated; as a deserving assistant it is respected.
Then what need is there for the Volucella to disguise herself as a
Wasp? Any Fly, whether grey or motley, is admitted to the burrow
directly she makes herself useful to the community. The mimicry of the
Volucella, which was said to be one of the most conclusive cases, is,
after all, a mere childish notion. Patient observation, continually
face to face with facts, will have none of it and leaves it to the
arm-chair naturalists, who are too prone to look at the animal world
through the illusive mists of theory.
NOTES
[1] I include three species promiscuously under this one name, that is
to say, E. pomiformis, Fabr., E. bipunctis, Sauss., and E. dubius,
Sauss. As I did not distinguish between them in my first
investigations, which date a very long time back, it is not possible
for me to-day to attribute to each of them its respective nest. But
their habits are the same, for which reason this confusion does not
injure the order of ideas in the present chapter.—Author’s Note.
[2] The Grey Worm is the caterpillar of Noctua segetum, the Dart or
Turnip Moth. It is hunted by the Hairy Ammophila, for whom cf. The
Hunting Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de
Mattos: chap. xviii.—Translator’s Note.
[3] Cf. The Hunting Wasps: passim; Insect Life, by J. H. Fabre,
translated by the author of Mademoiselle Mori: chaps. iii. to xii.,
xiv. to xvii. and xix.; The Life and Love of the Insect, by J. Henri
Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. xi. to xii.;
and Social Life of the Insect World, by J. H. Fabre, translated by
Bernard Miall: chap. xiii.—Translator’s Note.
[4] Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, the Roman architect and
engineer.—Translator’s Note.
[5] Cf. The Mason-bees, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. i. to iii. et passim.—Translator’s Note.
[6] .63 inch to .7 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[7] .12 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[8] Also known as the Measuring-worm, the caterpillar of the Geometrid
Moth.—Translator’s Note.
[9] .585 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[10] .098 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[11] .27 by .50 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[12] Cf. Bramble-bees and Others, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. iv.—Translator’s Note.
[13] Cf. The Hunting Wasps: chaps. iv. to viii. and xiii. to
xx.—Translator’s Note.
[14] René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683–1757), inventor of the
Réaumur thermometer and author of Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire
naturelle des insectes.—Translator’s Note.
[15] Jean Marie Léon Dufour (1780–1865), an army surgeon who served
with distinction in several campaigns and afterwards practised as a
doctor in the Landes, where he attained great eminence as a naturalist.
Fabre often refers to him as the Wizard of the Landes. Cf. The Life of
the Spider, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de
Mattos: chap. i; and The Life of the Fly by J. Henri Fabre, translated
by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. i.—Translator’s Note.
[16] Amédée Comte Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau (1769–circa 1850), author
of an Histoire naturelle des insectes (1836–1846) and of the volume on
insects in the Encyclopédie méthodique. He was a younger brother of
Louis Michel and Félix Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau, the members of the
Convention.—Translator’s Note.
[17] Jean Victor Audouin (1797–1841), founder of the Annales des
sciences naturelles and author of a number of works on insects
injurious to agriculture.—Translator’s Note.
[18] Émile Blanchard (b. 1820), author of various works on insects,
Spiders, etc.—Translator’s Note.
[19] Cf. Bramble-bees and Others: chaps. i. to vii.—Translator’s Note.
[20] Cf. Chapter III. of the present volume.—Translator’s Note.
[21] The French, it may hardly be necessary to explain, pronounce Latin
precisely as though it were French.—Translator’s Note.
[22] Réaumur’s actual words are “vers verts;” and Fabre rightly
complains of “the hideous assonance.”—Translator’s Note.
[23] For the Bembex cf. The Hunting Wasps: chaps. xiv. to
xvi.—Translator’s Note.
[24] .39 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[25] The Iulus belongs to the Myriapod family, which includes the
Centipedes, etc.—Translator’s Note.
[26] .156 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[27] .234 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[28] Cf. The Mason-bees: chap. x.—Translator’s Note.
[29] 1.17 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[30] .58 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[31] For the various species of Burrowing Bees known as the Anthophoræ,
cf. Bramble-bee and others: chap. vii. et passim.—Translator’s Note.
[32] For the Cicada, or Cigale, cf. The Life of the Grasshopper, by J.
Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. i. to
v.—Translator’s Note.
[33] The Pompilus, or Ringed Calicurgus, is a Hunting Wasp, feeding her
young on Spiders. Cf. The Life and Love of the Insect: chap.
xii.—Translator’s Note.
[34] For the Epeiræ, or Garden Spiders, cf. The Life of the Spider:
chaps. ix. to xiv.—Translator’s Note.
[35] One of the Tube-weaving Spiders.—Translator’s Note.
[36] For Theridion lugubre and the Narbonne Lycosa, or Black-bellied
Tarantula, cf. The Life of the Spider: chap. i.—Translator’s Note.
[37] Cf. The Life of the Spider: chaps. vi. and vii.—Translator’s Note.
[38] A family of Digger Wasps of whom the larger species burrow in the
ground and the smaller in the pith of plants or in rotten
wood.—Translator’s Note.
[39] Joseph Jérôme Le Français de Lalande (1732–1807), the astronomer.
Even after he had achieved his reputation, he sought means, outside the
domain of science, to make himself talked about and found these in the
display partly of odd tastes, such as that for eating Spiders and
caterpillars, and partly of atheistical opinions.—Translator’s Note.
[40] Or Pompilus: vide supra.—Translator’s Note.
[41] For the Scolia, cf. The Life and Love of the Insect: chap. xi.;
for the Sphex, cf. The Hunting Wasps: chaps. iv. to x.—Translator’s
Note.
[42] .177 by .039 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[43] For the Cerceris, cf. The Hunting Wasps: chaps. i. to iii; for the
Philanthus, or Bee-eating Wasp, cf. Social Life in the Insect World:
chap. xiii. Some of the other Wasps mentioned above will form the
subject of chapters in a later volume of this series entitled More
Hunting Wasps.—Translator’s Note.
[44] Étienne Bonnot de Condillac, Abbé de Mureaux (1715–1780), the
leading exponent of sensual philosophy. His most important work is a
Traité des sensations, in which he imagines a statue organized like a
man and endows it with the senses one by one, beginning with that of
smell. He argues by a process of imaginative reconstruction that all
human faculties and all human knowledge are merely transformed
sensations, to the exclusion of any other principle; in short, that
everything has its source in sensation: man is nothing but what he has
acquired.—Translator’s Note.
[45] The order of insects consisting of the Butterflies and
Moths.—Translator’s Note.
[46] Cf. The Life of the Caterpillar, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xi.—Translator’s Note.
[47] Bombyx mori, the Moth of the Silkworm.—Translator’s Note.
[48] Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882), the author of The Origin of
Species, had the highest opinion of Fabre and spoke of him as “that
incomparable observer.” Fabre, on the other hand, had no faith whatever
in Darwinism, nor was he greatly struck by the views and the
suggestions for experiments with which Darwin favoured him from time to
time. Cf. The Mason-bees: chaps. iv. and v.—Translator’s Note.
[49] “The cheerful morn salutes Evander’s eyes;
And songs of chirping birds invite to rise.
He leaves his lowly bed.”
Æneid: book viii; Dryden’s translation.
[50] “Then underneath a lowly roof he led
The weary prince and laid him on a bed;
The stuffing leaves with hides of bears o’erspread.”
Æneid: book viii; Dryden’s translation.
[51] Also known as the House-swallow, or House-martin.—Translator’s
Note.
[52] Cf. The Life of the Fly: chap. xvii., in which the author
describes his collection of water-colour drawings of mushrooms done by
his own hand.—Translator’s Note.
[53] Or Leaf-cutters. Cf. Bramble-bees and Others: chap.
viii.—Translator’s Note.
[54] Cf. Bramble-bees and Others: passim.—Translator’s Note.
[55] Cf. Bramble-bees and Others: passim.—Translator’s Note.
[56] Cf. Bramble-bees and Others: chaps. iii. and iv.—Translator’s
Note.
[57] Cf. the essay on the Resin-bees in Bramble-bees and Others: chap.
x.—Translator’s Note.
[58] The Common Snail.—Translator’s Note.
[59] Cf. The Life and Love of the Insect: chap. xi.—Translator’s Note.
[60] Not yet published in English.—Translator’s Note.
[61] The Hunting Wasps: chaps. viii. to x. and xviii.—Translator’s
Note.
[62] Cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. iv.—Translator’s Note.
[63] Sexually undeveloped females.—Translator’s Note.
[64] A widely-distributed genus of Pond-snails.—Translator’s Note.
[65] Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper: chaps. xiv. and xvi.—Translator’s
Note.
[66] John James Audubon (1780–1851), a noted American ornithologist of
French descent, author of The Birds of America, which was published by
subscription (1827–1830) at $1,000 a copy.—Translator’s Note.
[67] Cf. The Hunting Wasps: chap. vii.—Translator’s Note.
[68] Hylotoma rosæ, the Saw-fly of the Rose. Cf. Chapter XII. of the
present volume.—Translator’s Note.
[69] A Beetle whose larva lives in the shoots of cherry- and
walnut-trees, as well as in those of alder and elm. Cf. Chapter XII. of
the present volume.—Translator’s Note.
[70] Or Greenbottles. Cf. The Life of the Fly: chap. ix.—Translator’s
Note.
[71] Cf. The Life of the Fly: chap. ix.—Translator’s Note.
[72] Rove-beetles.—Translator’s Note.
[73] Bacon-beetles.—Translator’s Note.
[74] Cf. The Life of the Fly: chaps. ix., x. and xiv. to
xvi.—Translator’s Note.