INSECT ADVENTURES
Petty truths, I shall be told, those presented by the habits of a
spider or a grasshopper. There are no petty truths today; there is but
one truth, whose looking-glass to our uncertain eyes seems broken,
though its every fragment, whether reflecting the evolution of a planet
or the flight of a bee, contains the supreme law.
MAURICE MAETERLINCK
[Illustration: “What a day it was when I first became a herdsman of
ducks!”]
INSECT ADVENTURES
BY
J. HENRI FABRE
_Selections from Alexander Teixeira de Mattos’
Translation of Fabre’s “Souvenirs Entomologiques”_
RETOLD FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
BY
LOUISE SEYMOUR HASBROUCK
ILLUSTRATED BY
ELIAS GOLDBERG
[Colophon]
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1917
COPYRIGHT, 1917,
By DODD, MEAD & COMPANY, Inc.
PREFACE
Jean Henri Fabre, author of the long series of “Souvenirs
Entomologiques” from which these studies are taken, was a French
school-teacher and scientist whose peculiar gift for the observation
and description of insect life won for him the title of the “insects’
Homer.” A distinguished English critic says of him, “Fabre is the
wisest man, and the best read in the book of nature, of whom the
centuries have left us any record.” The fact that he was mainly
self-taught, and that his life was an unending struggle with poverty
and disappointment, increases our admiration for his wonderful
achievements in natural science.
A very interesting account of his early years, given by himself, will
be found in Chapter XVII of this volume. The salaries of rural teachers
and professors were extremely small in France during the last century,
and Fabre, who married young, could barely support his large family.
Nature study was not in the school curriculum, and it was years before
he could devote more than scanty spare hours to the work. At the age
of thirty-two, however, he published the first volume of his insect
studies. It attracted the attention of scientists and brought him a
prize from the French Institute. Other volumes were published from time
to time, but some of Fabre’s fellow scientists were displeased because
the books were too interesting! They feared, said Fabre, “lest a page
that is read without fatigue should not always be the expression of
the truth.” He defended himself from this extraordinary complaint in a
characteristic way.
“Come here, one and all of you,” he addressed his friends, the insects.
“You, the sting-bearers, and you, the wing-cased armor-clads—take up
my defense and bear witness in my favor. Tell of the intimate terms on
which I live with you, of the patience with which I observe you, of
the care with which I record your actions. Your evidence is unanimous;
yes, my pages, though they bristle not with hollow formulas or learned
smatterings, are the exact narrative of facts observed, neither more
nor less; and whoso cares to question you in his turn will obtain the
same replies.
“And then, my dear insects, if you cannot convince these good people,
because you do not carry the weight of tedium, I, in my turn, will say
to them:
“‘You rip up the animal and I study it alive; you turn it into an
object of horror and pity, whereas I cause it to be loved; you labor in
a torture-chamber and dissecting-room, I make my observation under the
blue sky to the song of the cicadas; you subject cell and protoplasm to
chemical tests, I study instinct in its loftiest manifestations; you
pry into death, I pry into life.... I write above all for the young. I
want to make them love the natural history which you make them hate;
and that is why, while keeping strictly in the domain of truth, I avoid
your scientific prose, which too often, alas, seems borrowed from some
Iroquois idiom.’”
Fabre, though an inspiring teacher, had no talent for pushing himself,
and did not advance beyond an assistant professorship at a tiny salary.
The other professors at Avignon, where he taught for twenty years,
were jealous of him because his lectures on natural history attracted
much attention, and nicknamed him “the Fly.” He was turned out of his
house at short notice because the owners, two maiden ladies, had been
influenced by his enemies, who considered his teachings in natural
history irreligious. Many years later, the invaluable textbooks he
had written were discontinued from use in the schools because they
contained too much religion! A process which he invented for the
extraction of dye from madder flowers, by which he hoped to make
himself independent, proved unprofitable on account of the appearance
on the market of the cheaper aniline dyes.
Though unknown during most of his lifetime to the world at large, Fabre
through his writings gained the friendship of several celebrated men.
Charles Darwin called him the “incomparable observer.” The Minister of
Education in France invited him to Paris and had him made a Chevalier
of the Legion of Honor, and presented him to the Emperor, Napoleon III.
He was offered the post of tutor to the Prince Imperial, but preferred
his country life and original researches, even though they meant
continued poverty.
At last, after forty years of drudgery, Fabre secured from his
textbooks a small independent income, which released him from teaching
and enabled him to buy at Serignan a house and garden of his own, and
a small piece of waste ground, dedicated to thistles and insects—a
“cursed ground,” he wrote, “which no one would have as a gift to sow
with a pinch of turnip seed,” but “an earthly paradise for bees and
wasps”—and, on that account, for him also.
“It is a little late, O my pretty insects,” he adds—he was at this time
over sixty; “I greatly fear the peach is offered to me only when I am
beginning to have no teeth wherewith to eat it.” He lived, however, to
spend many years at his chosen studies.
During the last years of his life his fame spread, and in 1910, in
his eighty-eighth year, some of his admirers arranged a jubilee
celebration for him at Serignan. Many famous men attended, and letters
and telegrams poured in from all parts of the world. He died five years
later, at the age of ninety-two.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I My First Pond 17
II The Caddis-Worm 31
III The Mason-Bees 37
IV Bees, Cats and Red Ants 49
V The Mining Bees 62
VI The Leaf-Cutting Bees 78
VII The Cotton-Bees and Resin-Bees 85
VIII The Hairy Sand-Wasp 93
IX The Wasp and the Cricket 106
X The Fly-Hunting Wasp 113
XI Parasites 125
XII Fly Scavengers 133
XIII The Pine Caterpillar 135
XIV The Cabbage Caterpillar 161
XV The Great Peacock Moths 167
XVI The Truffle-Hunting Beetle 171
XVII The Boy Who Loved Insects 177
XVIII The Banded Spider 199
XIX The Tarantula 209
XX The Clotho Spider 236
XXI The Spiders’ Telegraph-Wire 242
XXII The Crab Spider 248
XXIII The Labyrinth Spider 257
XXIV The Building of a Spider’s Web 266
XXV The Geometry of a Spider’s Web 276
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
What a Day It Was When I First Became a Herdsman
of Ducks! (_Frontispiece_) 4
I Think of the King’s Crown of the Princesses’
Necklace 25
The Flowers Which Deck the Mountain Streams
With Gold Supply Her With Sugary Liquid
and Pollen 41
“Be Off, or You’ll Catch It!” Says the Doorkeeping Bee 73
What Pattern that She Carries in Her Mind Guides
Her Scissors? 83
The Gorgeous Drama 102
One Day, Bang! 119
When Winter is Near They Will Build a Stronger Tent 139
They Proceed in Single File 146
The Fire Was Not Exactly Lit for Us 183
Does She Help Them to Regain Their Place on Her Back? 226
The Slanting Cord Is a Telegraph Wire 244
Like the Finish of a Fire-Works Display 255
INSECT ADVENTURES
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
MY FIRST POND
I am never tired of looking in a pond. What busy life there is in
that green world! On the warm mud of the edges, the Frog’s little
Tadpole basks and frisks in its black legions; down in the water, the
orange-bellied Newt steers his way slowly with the broad rudder of
his flat tail; among the reeds are stationed the little fleets of the
Caddis-worms, half-protruding from their tubes, which are now a tiny
bit of stick and again a tower of little shells.
In the deep places, the Water-beetle dives, carrying with him his extra
supply of breath, an air-bubble at the tip of the wing-cases and, under
the chest, a film of gas that gleams like a silver breast plate; on the
surface, the ballet of those shimmering pearls, the Whirligigs, turns
and twists about; hard by, there swims the troop of the Pond-skaters,
who glide along with side-strokes like those which the cobbler makes
when sewing.
Here are the Water-boatmen, who swim on their backs with two oars
spread crosswise, and the flat Water-scorpions; here, clad in mud, is
the grub of the largest of our Dragon-flies, so curious because of its
manner of moving: it fills its hinder parts, a yawning funnel, with
water, spirts it out again and advances just so far as the recoil of
its water cannon.
There are plenty of peaceful Shellfish. At the bottom, the plump
River-snails discreetly raise their lid, opening ever so little the
shutters of their dwelling; on the level of the water, in the glades
of the water-garden, the Pond-snails take the air. Dark Leeches writhe
upon their prey, a chunk of Earthworm; thousands of tiny, reddish
grubs, future Mosquitoes, go spinning around and twist and curve like
so many graceful Dolphins.
Yes, a stagnant pool, though but a few feet wide, hatched by the sun,
is an immense world, a marvel to the child who, tired of his paper
boat, amuses himself by noticing what is happening in the water. Let
me tell what I remember of my first pond, which I explored when I was
seven years old.
We had nothing but the little house inherited by my mother, and its
patch of garden. Our money was almost all gone. What was to be done?
That was the stern question which father and mother sat talking over
one evening.
Do you remember Hop-o’-My-Thumb, who hid under the wood-cutter’s stool
and listened to his parents overcome by want? I was like him. I also
listened, pretending to sleep, with my elbows on the table. It was not
blood-curdling designs that I heard but grand plans that set my heart
rejoicing.
[Illustration]
“Suppose we breed some ducks,” says mother. “They sell very well in
town. Henri would mind them and take them down to the brook. And we
could feed them on the grease from the tallow-factory, which they say
is excellent for ducks, and which we could buy for a small price.”
“Very well,” says father, “let’s breed some ducks. There may be
difficulties in the way; but we’ll have a try.”
That night I had dreams of paradise: I was with my ducklings, clad in
their yellow suits; I took them to the pond, I watched them have their
bath, I brought them back again, carrying the more tired ones in a
basket.
A month or two after the little birds of my dreams were a reality.
There were twenty-four of them. They had been hatched by two hens, of
whom one, the big black one, was an inmate of the house, while the
other was borrowed from a neighbor.
To bring them up, the big, black hen is enough, so careful is she of
her adopted family. At first everything goes perfectly: a tub with two
fingers’ depth of water serves as a pond. On sunny days the ducklings
bathe in it under the anxious eye of the hen.
Two weeks later, the tub no longer satisfies. It contains neither
cresses crammed with tiny Shellfish nor Worms and Tadpoles, dainty
morsels both. The time has come for dives and hunts among the tangle of
the water-weeds; and for us the day of trouble has also come. How are
we, right up at the top of the hill, to get water enough for a pond for
our broods? In summer, we have hardly water to drink!
Near the house there is only a scanty spring from which four or five
families besides ourselves draw their water with copper pails. By the
time that the schoolmasters donkey has quenched her thirst and the
neighbors have taken their provision for the day, the spring-basin is
dry. We have to wait four-and-twenty hours for it to fill. No, there is
no place there for ducklings.
There is a brook at the foot of the hill, but to go down to it with
the troop of ducklings is dangerous. On the way through the village we
might meet murdering cats, or some surly dog might frighten and scatter
the little band; and it would be a puzzling task to collect them all
again. But there is still another spot, part way up the hill, where
there is a meadow and a pond of some size. It is very quiet there, and
the place can be reached by a deserted footpath. The ducklings will be
well off.
What a day it was when I first became a herdsman of ducks! Why must
there be a drawback to such joys? Walking on the hard stones had given
me a large and painful blister on the heel. If I had wanted to put on
the shoes stowed away in the cupboard for Sundays and holidays, I could
not. I had to go barefoot over the broken stones, dragging my leg and
carrying high the injured heel.
The ducks, too, poor little things, had sensitive soles to their feet;
they limped, they quacked with fatigue. They would have refused to go
any farther towards the pond if I had not, from time to time, called a
halt under the shelter of an ash.
[Illustration]
We are there at last. The place could not be better for my birdlets:
shallow, tepid water, with a few muddy knolls and little green islands.
The pleasures of the bath begin at once. The ducklings clap their beaks
and rummage here, there, and everywhere; they sift each mouthful,
throwing out the clear water and swallowing the good bits. In the
deeper parts they point their tails into the air and stick their heads
under water. They are happy: and it is a blessed thing to see them at
work. I too am enjoying the pond.
What is this? On the mud lie some loose, knotted, soot-covered cords.
One might take them for threads of wool like those which you pull out
of an old ravelly stocking. Can some shepherdess, knitting a black
sock and finding her work turn out badly, have begun all over again
and, in her impatience, have thrown down the wool with all the dropped
stitches? It really looks like it.
I take up one of those cords in my hand. It is sticky and very loose;
the thing slips through my fingers before they can catch hold of it.
A few of the knots burst and shed their contents. What comes out is
a black ball, the size of a pin’s head, followed by a flat tail. I
recognize, on a very small scale, a familiar object: the Tadpole, the
Frog’s baby.
Here are some other creatures. They spin around on the surface of the
water and their black backs gleam in the sun. If I lift a hand to seize
them, that moment they disappear, I do not know where. It’s a pity; I
should have liked much to see them closer and to make them wriggle in a
little bowl which I should have put ready for them.
Let us look at the bottom of the water, pulling aside those bunches
of green string from which beads of air are rising and gathering into
foam. There is something of everything underneath. I see pretty shells
with compact whorls, flat as beans; I notice little worms carrying
tufts and feathers; I make out some with flabby fins constantly
flapping on their backs. What are they all doing there? What are their
names? I do not know. And I stare at them for ever so long, held by the
mystery of the waters.
At the place where the pond dribbles into the near-by field, are some
alder-trees; and here I make a glorious find. It is a Beetle—not a
very large one, oh, no! He is smaller than a cherry-stone, but of an
unutterable blue. The angels in paradise must wear dresses of that
color. I put the glorious one inside an empty snail-shell, which I plug
up with a leaf. I shall admire that living jewel at my leisure, when I
get back. Other things call me away.
The spring that feeds the pond trickles from the rock, cold and clear.
The water first collects into a cup, the size of the hollow of one’s
two hands, and then runs over in a stream. These falls call for a mill:
that goes without saying. I build one with two bits of straw, crossed
on an axis, and supported by flat stones set on edge. The mill is a
great success. I am sorry I have no playmates but the ducklings to
admire it.
Let us contrive a dam to hold back the waters and form a pool. There
are plenty of stones for the brickwork. I pick the most suitable; I
break the larger ones. And, while collecting these blocks, suddenly I
forget all about the dam which I meant to build.
On one of the broken stones, in a hole large enough for me to put
my fist into, something gleams like glass. The hollow is lined with
facets gathered in sixes which flash and glitter in the sun. I have
seen something like this in church, on the great saints’-days, when the
light of the candles in the big chandelier kindles the stars in its
hanging crystal.
We children, lying, in summer, on the straw of the threshing-floor,
have told one another stories of the treasures which a dragon guards
underground. Those treasures now return to my mind: the names of
precious stones ring out uncertainly but gloriously in my memory. I
think of the king’s crown, of the princesses’ necklaces. In breaking
stones, can I have found, but on a much richer scale, the thing that
shines quite small in my mother’s ring? I want more such.
The dragon of the subterranean treasures treats me generously. He gives
me his diamonds in such quantities that soon I possess a heap of broken
stones sparkling with magnificent clusters. He does more: he gives me
his gold. The trickle of water from the rock falls on a bed of fine
sand which it swirls into bubbles. If I bend over towards the light,
I see something like gold-filings whirling where the fall touches the
bottom. Is it really the famous metal of which twenty-franc pieces, so
rare with us at home, are made? One would think so, from the glitter.
[Illustration: “I think of the king’s crown, of the princesses’
necklace.”]
I take a pinch of sand and place it in my palm. The brilliant particles
are numerous, but so small that I have to pick them up with a straw
moistened in my mouth. Let us drop this: they are too tiny and too
bothersome to collect. The big, valuable lumps must be farther on,
in the thickness of the rock. We’ll come back later; we’ll blast the
mountain.
I break more stones. Oh, what a queer thing has just come loose, all
in one piece! It is turned spiral-wise, like certain flat Snails that
come out of the cracks of old walls in rainy weather. With its gnarled
sides, it looks like a little ram’s-horn. How do things like that find
their way into the stone?
Treasures and curiosities make my pockets bulge with pebbles. It is
late and the little ducklings have had all they want to eat. “Come
along, youngsters,” I say to them, “let’s go home.” My blistered heel
is forgotten in my excitement.
The walk back is a delight, as I think of all the wonderful things
I have found. But a sad disappointment is waiting for me when I
reach home. My parents catch sight of my bulging pockets, with their
disgraceful load of stones. The cloth has given way under the rough and
heavy burden.
“You rascal!” says father, at sight of the damage. “I send you to mind
the ducks and you amuse yourself picking up stones, as though there
weren’t enough of them all round the house! Make haste and throw them
away!”
Broken-hearted, I obey. Diamonds, gold-dust, petrified ram’s-horn,
heavenly Beetle, are all flung on a rubbish-heap outside the door.
[Illustration]
Mother bewails her lot:
“A nice thing, bringing up children to see them turn out so badly!
You’ll bring me to my grave. Green stuff I don’t mind: it does for
the rabbits. But stones, which ruin your pockets; poisonous animals,
which’ll sting your hand: what good are they to you, silly? There’s no
doubt about it; some one has thrown a spell over you!”
Poor mother! She was right. A spell had been cast upon me—a spell which
Nature herself had woven. In later years I found out that the diamonds
of the duck-pool were rock-crystal, the gold-dust, mica; but the
fascination of the pond held good for all that. It was full of secrets
that were worth more to me than diamonds or gold.
[Illustration]
THE GLASS POND
Have you ever had an indoor pond? Such a pond is easy to make and
one can watch the life of the water in it even better than outdoors,
where the ponds are too large and have too much in them. Besides, when
out-of-doors, one is likely to be disturbed by passers-by.
For my indoor pond, the blacksmith made me a framework of iron rods.
The carpenter, who is also a glazier, set the framework on a wooden
base and supplied it with a movable board as a lid; he then fixed thick
panes of glass in the four sides. The bottom of the pond was made of
tarred sheet iron, and had a trap to let the water out. The contrivance
looked very well, standing on a little table in front of a sunny
window. It held about ten or twelve gallons.
I put in it first some limy incrustations with which certain springs in
my neighborhood cover the dead clumps of rushes. It is light, full of
holes, and looks a little like a coral reef. Moreover, it is covered
with a short, green, velvety moss of tiny pond-weed. I count upon this
pond-weed to keep the water healthy. How? Let us see.
The living creatures in the pond fill the water, just as living people
fill the air, with gases unfit to breathe. Somehow the pond must get
rid of these gases, or its inhabitants will die. This is what the
pond-weed does; it breathes in and burns up the unwholesome gases,
changing them into a life-giving gas.
If you will look at the pond when the sun is shining on it, you will
see this change take place. How beautiful the water-weeds are! The
green-carpeted reef is lit up with countless sparkling points and
looks like a fairy lawn of velvet, studded with thousands of diamond
pin-heads. From this exquisite jewelry pearls constantly break loose
and are at once replaced by others; slowly they rise, like tiny globes
of light. They spread on every side. It is a constant display of
fireworks in the depth of the water.
This is what is really happening: The weeds are decomposing—that is,
separating into its elements—the unwholesome carbonic acid gas with
which the water is filled; they keep the carbon to use in their own
cells; they breathe out the oxygen in tiny bubbles, the pearls that you
have seen. These partly dissolve in the water, making it healthful for
the little water-creatures to breathe, and partly reach the surface,
where they vanish in the air, making it good for us to breathe.
No matter how often I see it, I cannot help being interested in this
everyday marvel of a bundle of weeds purifying a stagnant pool; I look
with a delighted eye upon the ceaseless spray of spreading bubbles; I
see in imagination the prehistoric times when seaweed, the first-born
of plants, produced the first atmosphere for living things to breathe
at the time when the land of the continents was beginning to rise out
of the oceans. What I see before my eyes, between the glass panes of my
pond, tells me the story of the planet surrounding itself with pure air.
[Illustration]