It is not a less important duty for the bee to rise at an early hour

and be present at the moment when the flower--which has slumbered

under the penetrating dew (exhaled by its divine master, father, and

lover, the sun)--awakes, and recovers its consciousness. Struck by

the sympathetic beam, it no longer resists; it gives up the softened

essence of its choicest sweetness; it becomes, as it were, a tiny

fountain, which distils honey drop by drop. Opportunely comes the bee;

its work here is very nearly completed: the sweet treasure, finely

prepared in that hour of perfection, will entail but little labour. It

bears it off to its children: "Eat; it is the soul of the blossom."

But in the noonday heat will she remain inactive? The burning sun and

dry air have withered up the blossoms of the plain. But those of the

woods, sheltered by the fresh cool shades, present their cups brimming

over; those of the murmurous brooks, and silent and deep marshes, are

then instinct with vitality. The forget-me-not dreams, and weeps tiny

tears of nectar. Even the white water-lily, in her pale virginity,

yields a rare treasure of love.

"Night does not injure the bee, but cold is extremely harmful. Such is

her conscientiousness, that, in order to avoid losing a day's labour in

our brief summers, she takes too little heed of the sudden returns of

winter, of the sharp caprices of the north wind, which sometimes visit

us on the finest days. Insects of inferior intelligence, but also less

industrious, perfectly understand the secret of escaping its influence.

In their prudent idleness they say to one another, 'Tomorrow! Let us

keep holiday!' And they patiently wait for one, or two, or more days,

until the wicked spirit of the north has abandoned its evil mood. But

those who have charge of souls, and a large family to maintain,--those

who know that a mild winter may chance to keep their offering awake,

and, accordingly, famished, will hesitate before they take a single

day's repose.

"And, therefore, on the cold mornings of a June not less bleak than

March, they do not fear to rush boldly into the fields. But they are

more valiant than robust; the cold catches them, and I have known them

drag their limbs to my windows, faltering and half-paralyzed. They have

made no attempt to escape; they have suffered themselves to be taken

prisoners. They were in a scared condition; still bearing the signs of

their courageous and indefatigable work, impregnated with the dust of

flowers, and their little, baskets loaded and overloaded with pollen.

They seemed to say:--'We are no sluggards. On the contrary, in the cold

hours of morning, when many are still asleep, we have already completed

a day's work. But, alas, the times are so hard, and the north wind is

so keen! Behold us half-frozen. A moment's hospitality, I pray you.'

"Who would not respect the misfortune of such blameless and over-eager

workers? I lent them not only a roof, and the warmth of an apartment

closed to the wind and open to the sun, but immediately improvised for

them a friendly repast. Where? At the bottom of a sugar-basin.

"The chilly creatures, having revived at a genial beam their lost

warmth, and restored to a good condition all the little electric world

of hairs with which they bristle, began the exploration of their

temporary prison, and were agreeably surprised to find the crystal a

dining-hall. With a good appetite, seating themselves at the table,

they attacked a fragment of sugar, and sucked up with their proboscis

all the sweetness they could find. When they had finished their

repast, and were completely restored, were fluttering to and fro,

demanding the way out, I set them free, without causing them to lose

one moment of a day already far advanced. With a rapid flight, charmed

by the noonday sun, they returned to their occupations, distinctly

humming:--'Farewell, madam, and many thanks!'"

[Illustration]

[Illustration: VIII.--THE BEES AS ARCHITECTS.]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VIII.

THE BEES AS ARCHITECTS: THE CITY.

If the wasp's nest resemble Sparta, the bee-hive is the veritable

Athens of the Insect World. There, all is art. The people--the

artist-élite of the people--incessantly create two things; on the one

hand, the City, the country,--on the other, the Universal Mother, whose

task it is not only to perpetuate the race, but to become its idol, its

_fetish_, the living god of the community.

The bees share with the wasps, the ants, and all the sociable insects,

the disinterested life of aunts and sisters,--laborious virgins, who

devote themselves entirely to an adoptive maternity.

But from these analogous peoples the bee differs in the necessity it is

under of creating a national idol, the love of which impels it to work.

All this has been long misunderstood. It was at first supposed that

this State was a monarchy, _that it possessed a king_. Not at all; the

king is a female. Thereupon one is driven to say, _This female is

a queen_. Another error. Not only does she not govern, or reign, or

control, but in certain conjunctions she is governed, and sometimes

even placed in private confinement. She is at once something more and

something less than a queen. She is an object of legal and public

adoration; I should say legal and constitutional, for this adoration is

not so blind but that the idol, in some cases, as we shall see, may be

treated very severely.

"Then, at bottom, the government will be democratic?" Yes; if we

take into consideration the unanimous devotion of the people, the

spontaneous labour of everybody. No one commands. But, nevertheless,

you can clearly see that in every higher work an intelligent body of

the _élite_, an aristocracy of artists, takes the lead. The city is

not built or organized by the entire people, but by a special class, a

kind of guild or corporation. While the mob of bees seeks the common

nourishment abroad, certain much larger bees, the wax-makers, elaborate

the wax, prepare it, shape it, and skilfully make use of it. Like

the medieval freemasons, this respectable corporation of architects

toils and builds on the principles of a profound geometry. Like those

of the old days, they are _the masters of the living stone_. But our

worthy bees are far more deserving of the title! The materials which

they employ they have made, have elaborated by their vital action, and

vivified with their internal juices.

Neither the honey nor the wax is a vegetable substance. Those little

light bees which go in quest of the essence of the flowers bring it

back already transformed and enriched by their virginal life. Sweet and

pure, it passes from their mouth to the mouth of their elder sisters.

These, the grave wax-makers, having received the aliment vivified and

endowed with the charming sweetness which is, as it were, the soul

of the race, elaborate it in their turn, and communicate to it their

own peculiar life,--solidity. Wise and sedentary, they work up the

liquid into a sedentary honey, a honey of the second quality, a kind of

reflected honey. This is not all: the substance twice elaborated, and

twice penetrated with animal juice, they incessantly moisten with their

saliva, when using it so as to render it softer for working, but more

tenacious afterwards.

Was I wrong, then, in saying that this construction is truly one of

"the living stones"? There is not an atom of the materials which is not

three times impregnated with life. Who shall say of yonder hive whether

the flower or the bee has furnished the greater part? The latter has

certainly contributed an important share. Here, the home of the people

is the people's substance and visible soul; from themselves they have

extracted their city, and their city is, in truth, themselves. Bee and

hive, it is one and the same thing.

But let us observe them at work.

Alone, in the centre of the still empty and to be created hive, the

learned wax-maker advances. From beneath its wings it delicately

extracts a thin slab of wax, and conveys it to its mouth, where it is

well kneaded and pounded, and drawn out into the shape of a ribbon.

Eight strips are in this wise furnished, wrought, and absorbed; and the

result is eight little blocks, which the bee lays down as the first

beams of the future edifice, the foundations of the new city.

Others continue the work without moving too far from the place where it

was begun. If any unintelligent labourer does not follow the prescribed

plan, the mistress-bees, experienced and accomplished, are on the spot

to detect any error, and immediately remedy it.

In the solid mass, well placed and skilfully squared, where such

numbers have harmoniously deposited their contribution of wax, an

excavation must now be made, and some degree of form attained. A single

bee again detaches herself from the crowd, and with her horny tongue,

teeth, and paws, she contrives to hollow out the solid matter like a

reversed vault. When fatigued she retires, and others take up the work

of modelling. In couples they shape off and thin the walls. The only

point to be remembered is a skilful management of their thickness. But

how do they appreciate this? Who or what warns them the moment a stroke

too much would break an opening in the partition? They never take the

trouble to make a tour of their work and examine it from the other

side. Their eyes are useless to them; they judge of everything by their

antennæ, which are their plumb-line and compass. They feel about, and

by an infinitely delicate touch recognize the elasticity of the wax,

perhaps by the sound it renders, and determine whether it is safe to

excavate it, or whether they must stop short, and not push their mining

operations further.

The building, as everybody knows, is destined to serve two ends. The

cells are generally used in summer as cradles, in winter as magazines

of pollen and honey,--a granary of abundance for the republic. Each

vessel is closed and sealed with a waxen lid, a _clôture_ religiously

respected by all the people, who take for their subsistence only a

single comb,--and when that comb is finished pass on to another, but

always with extreme reserve and sobriety.

It has been said and repeated that the construction is absolutely

uniform. Buffon goes so far as to pretend that the cell is but the

identical form of the bee, which posts itself in the wax, and by the

friction of its body, a blind manoeuvre, obtains an impress of itself,

a hollow, an identical cell. A baseless hypothesis, which the least

reflection would show to be improbable, even if observation did not

contradict it.

In reality, their work is extremely various, and diversified in

numerous different ways.

In the first place, the combs are pierced in the centre by corridors

or little tunnels, which do away with the necessity of traversing two

sides. Economists in everything, the bees are specially economical of

time.

Secondly, the form of the cells is by no means identical. They prefer

the hexagon,--the form which is best adapted to secure the greatest

possible number of cells in the smallest area. But they do not

slavishly bind themselves to this form. The first comb which they

attach to the framework would cling to it very insecurely, and only

by its projecting edges, if it were composed of six-sided cells. They

therefore make it with five sides only; and fashion it of pentagonal

cells with broad bases, which attach themselves solidly to the wood on

a continuous line. The whole is agglutinated and sealed, not with wax,

but with their gum, or _propolis_, which, as it dries, becomes hard as

iron.

The great royal cellules, or cradles of the future mothers, which may

be seen by the side of the combs, are not six-sided, but of the form of

an oblong egg,--which secures the royal favourites considerable ease,

and a great facility of development.

Finally, you may, with a little attention, detect important

differences among the ordinary hexagonal cells, though at the first

glance they all seem alike. They are small for the industrious

gleaners, larger for the artistic wax-makers, and largest for the

males. This size is generally obtained by means of a little rounded

fragment which is deposited in the bottom, and renders it slightly

circular,--I was about to say pot-bellied (_ventru_). As the house,

so the tenant; the male will come into the world a squat, obese

figure,--predestined to this form by that of its cradle.

Thus, of their own accord, they vary the configuration and extent of

the cellules. And they vary them yet more, according to the obstacles

they encounter. If room be denied them, they reduce the size of their

hexagons in due proportion and with extreme address. This fact Huber

verified by some ingenious experiments. He bethought himself of

deranging their operations by placing, instead of wood, a plate of

glass against the wall of the hive where they were building up their

cells. From the distance they saw this smooth shining crystal, to

which nothing could be fixed; and taking their measures accordingly,

they curved their cake in such a manner that it went past the glass

and joined on to the wood. But, to carry out the alteration, it became

necessary to change the diameter of the cells; to enlarge that of the

convex portion, and diminish that of the concave. A delicate problem!

and yet it was readily solved by the skilful architects.

In mid-winter, says Huber again, in their season of inertia, an

over-heavy slab of wax fell away, but was checked _en route_ by the

cakes beneath. An avalanche seemed imminent! But the bees invented

buttresses and barriers in strong mastic, which, supporting the

fallen cake and propping up the sides of the hive, prevented the

dangerous ruin from dragging down the inner edifice. Then, to prevent

the occurrence of similar misfortunes, they created some novel

architectural works in the shape of flying buttresses, bulwarks,

pillars, cross-beams, and the like.

_Novel!_ Ay, this is a sufficient refutation of Buffon's theory. That

machines or automata could invent, is a thing not easily explicable.

Yet the sovereign authority of this great dictator of natural history

would have prevailed, perhaps, over facts and over observation, if,

towards the close of the last century, the bees themselves, by an

unforeseen stroke, had not definitively cut the Gordian knot.

It was about the epoch of the American, and shortly before the outbreak

of the French Revolution. An unknown creature then made its appearance

over all Europe,--of a frightful figure,--a great strong nocturnal

butterfly, marked very plainly in tawny-gray, with a hideous death's

head. This sinister being, which none had seen before, alarmed every

countryside, and seemed an omen of the most terrible misfortunes.

Yet, in truth, those who were terrified by it had brought it into

Europe. It had come in the grub condition with its natal plant, the

American potato,--the fashionable vegetable which Parmentier extolled,

Louis XVI. protected, and which spread in all directions. The savants

baptized the insect with a somewhat horrifying name--the _Sphinx

Atropos_.

And terrible indeed _was_ this new creature, but only for the honey.

Of this it was remorselessly greedy, and to attain it was capable of

everything. A hive of thirty thousand bees could not daunt it. In the

depths of night, the rapacious monster, profiting by the hour when the

approaches to the city are less carefully guarded, with a gloomy but

subdued sound, as if stifled by the soft down which covers it (and all

other nocturnal insects), invaded the hive, swooped down on the combs,

devoured and plundered, gutted and destroyed the magazines, and slew

the infant bees. In vain they awoke, and flew to arms; their sting

could not penetrate through the soft elastic padding which clothed the

sphinx,--like the cotton armour worn by the Mexicans in the days of

Cortez, and impenetrable by Spanish weapons.

Huber meditated on the best means of protecting his bees against this

shameless brigand. Should it be by gratings, or doors? And how? He

could not determine. The most skilfully devised barriers have always

the inconvenience of impeding the great movement of ingress and egress,

which takes place at the threshold of the hive. Their impatience

regarded as intolerable the obstructions, which could not fail to

embarrass them, and against which they might break their wings.

One morning, Huber's faithful assistant, who seconded him in his

experiments, brought information that the bees themselves had already

solved the problem. In different hives they had conceived and

attempted various systems of defence and fortification. Here they

constructed a wall of wax, with narrow loopholes, through which the

_great_ enemy could not pass. There, by a more ingenious expedient,

without creating a single impediment, they built up some inter-crossing

arcades at the gates, or tiny cloisters one behind the other, but

running in different directions,--that is to say, to the void left by

the first corresponded the substance of the second. Thus was secured

a number of openings for the impatient buzzing crowd, which might go

in and out as usual, with no other difficulty than that of moving in

a slightly zigzag fashion. At the same time, a complete barrier was

obtained against the great and _big_ enemy, which could no longer

enter with expanded wings, nor even glide uninjured through the narrow

corridors.

It was the _coup d'état_ of the brute creation, the revolution of the

insects, executed by the bees, not only against their plunderers,

but against the calumniators who had denied their intelligence. The

theorists who had refused to believe in it, the Malebranches and the

Buffons, were compelled to own themselves beaten. They had to adopt the

reserve of eminent observers, like Swammerdam and Réaumur, who, far

from questioning the genius of insects, furnish us with numerous facts

in proof of its flexibility, of its rising to the measure of great

dangers, of its scorn of routine, and of its power to make unexpected

progress under certain circumstances.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: IX.--THE BEES: ON THE WING.]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IX.

HOW THE BEES CREATE THE PEOPLE AND THE COMMON MOTHER.

In the life of the bees, all things are brought to bear on the welfare

of the infant. Let us see, then, this object of love. Let us see what

is lying at the bottom of the cell; her who has just been created, the

little virgin of toil.

She is born in a condition of singular purity; so much so that she is

not even provided with the organ of the inferior necessities. On a

delicate mixture of honey and flower dust, which is constantly renewed,

you see nothing at first but a comma, then a C, a spiral. But she

already lives, is organized, and active; so that on the eighth day,

like a skilful spinner, she weaves her network of metamorphosis.

Her nurses, that she may enjoy a complete repose at the sacred moment,

take the precaution to close up her cell; erecting over it a little

dome, velvety, and of a tawny colour. For ten days she is a nymph,

enveloped in a veil of exceeding whiteness and great delicacy, through

which you can discern a miniature of mouth, eyes, wings, and feet.

Twenty-one days suffice for her development. Then she scratches an

opening in the little dome, and thrusts through it her head; next,

with her fore-feet resting on the rim, she strenuously endeavours to

disengage her whole body. It is a great effort; but the honey is close

at hand to recruit her energies. At the first cell she falls in with

she plunges into it her proboscis, and initiates herself into life.

She is still humid, gray, and very weak. So she hastens to get dry in

the sun, to harden her soft and rumpled wings. There she is welcomed by

her numerous kinswomen, who stroke and lick her amorously, and bestow

on her a maternal kiss.

No creature is more richly endowed with implements, or more obviously

intended for an industrial speciality. Each organ reads her its lesson,

and informs her what she has to do. Lighted by five eyes and guided by

a couple of antennæ, she carries in front, projecting beyond her mouth,

an unique and marvellous instrument of taste,--the proboscis, or long

external tongue,--which is of peculiar delicacy, and partly hairy that

it may the more readily absorb and imbibe. Protected, when at rest, by

a beautiful scaly sheath, the proboscis puts forth its fine point to

touch a liquid; and this point wetted, draws it back into its mouth,

where lies the internal tongue, a subtle judge of sensation, and the

final authority.

To this delicate apparatus add some coarser attributes which indicate

their own uses: hairs on every side to catch up the dust of the

flowers, brushes on the thighs to sweep together the scattered harvest,

and panniers to compress it into pellets of many colours. All these

conjoined form the insignia of her trade.--Go, my daughter, and become

a reaper!

Thou wilt desire nothing else, and thou wilt be fit for nothing else.

The fairy virgins who prepared thy cradle, and feed thee daily, will

bring thee up to be what they have been. Sober, laborious, and sterile,

they practise a rigid economy; in them and in thee they maintain

the pure flame of virginity by fasting, or at least by very scanty

nourishment, while they banquet splendidly the future mother, though

still a child, and are lavish towards the numerous, and, for the most

part, useless tribe of males.

It is here we reach the fundamental strata of the City, the aristocracy

of devotion and intelligence. The wax-makers, or bee-architects, if

they consulted the wishes of the living queen, would never train up

an heiress to her throne. She is blindly jealous, and as soon as the

successor is born would have her put to death. They do not listen.

Those firm sage heads, remembering that we all die, take counsel on the

necessity of perpetuating the race. And, accordingly, by the side of

the cells, or close little cradles which receive all the children of

the republic, they build some spacious chambers, fifteen, nay, twenty

times larger, in which the ordinary egg, favoured by the conditions

of ease and liberty, may enlarge and develop at will all its natural

faculties. The more certainly to ensure the superior growth of the

chosen egg, they prodigalize upon it a stronger and more generous food,

which shall give full liberty to its sex, and endow it with fecundity.

Such is the efficacy of this potent liquor, that if the nurses

accidentally let fall a drop or two on the neighbouring cradles, the

little bees, rejoicing in the chance, participate in the queen-mother's

fecundity, although in an inferior degree.

Madam,

Kings I have made, but never willed to be one.

[J'ai fait des rois, madame, et n'ai pas voulu l'être.]

This dramatic line perfectly characterizes the disinterestedness of

these prudent nurses. They bestow all the world's gifts on their

favourite,--a beautiful and ample habitation, a superior regimen, and

that paradise of women--motherhood!

To the others, on the contrary,--to their sisters, who are born

resembling them,--narrow cradles, coarse food, incessant work, and

pain! These will go into the fields to sweat for the people and the

mother; those, confined at home, will build incessantly, and attend to

the young. No recreation is allowed to them; I do not think they have,

like the ants, fêtes and gymnastic games. Their entire feast will be

labour (from which the queen-mother is excused). To one alone they

give love, and for themselves preserve nothing but wisdom.

* * * * *

The characteristic attribute of this child of grace, of whom the whole

multitude is enamoured, is certain beautiful long legs of gold, or

rather of transparent amber, of a gilded yellow. This rich colour lends

nobility to her belly, and is also found on the edge of her dorsal

rings. Elegant, _svelte_, and noble, she is freed from the drudgery of

dragging the industrial apparatus which overloads the worker,--brushes

and panniers. Like all the bees, she carries a sword,--I mean the

sting,--but never uses it except in a personal combat; nor has she many

occasions, being so surrounded, beset, and overwhelmed with an excess

of love.

This mother is very timorous, a trifle is sufficient to terrify her;

at the slightest danger she takes to flight, and conceals herself at

the bottom of the hive. Her head is not very large, and the unique

function which so distinguishes her, is not one of those which tend

to expand the brain. The others have more opportunity of acquiring

knowledge and varying their accomplishments. The little gleaners gather

a wide experience Of the country and of life. The bee-architects,

who, moreover, attend to a thousand unforeseen domestic affairs, are

compelled to think and develop their intelligence. The mother has but

two duties to fulfil.

On a sunny day in spring, about three hours after noon, she issues

forth, and out of a myriad males or more she selects a spouse, carries

him off a moment on her wings, and then rejects him, mutilated; he does

not survive his felicity. She re-enters her hive, and all is ended. She

is impregnated for four years, the ordinary term of her existence. No

loves can be briefer or more chaste. All her toil, by day and night,

without distinction of season,--except for three months of lethargy in

rigorous winters,--is to lay eggs everywhere, and without cessation.

She flies from cellule to cellule, and in each deposits an egg. Nothing

more is required of her. She was born for this destiny, and her people

prosper in proportion to her fecundity. If she fell barren, all would

languish,--as well as the activity, the labour, and the love which

every one bestows upon her. The sentiment displayed towards her is

not so much of a personal character as the idea of utility, of the

preservation and perpetuity of the people, which very visibly prevails.

This mother, say our authors, has a somewhat giddy head. Like all

individuals who have nothing to do, she is volatile and capricious.

At the end of a year's incubation and sedentary life in the depths of

the hive, a desire seizes her for the open air, to see a little of the

world, to visit new countries. She has, nevertheless, a more serious

motive than they say. She sees the spacious chambers which are being

built for the young mothers who will replace her. She feels that her

rivals are concealed there, and grows fiercely jealous. Incessantly she

prowls around, and but for the assiduous guard which protects them, and

keeps her away, she would dart her sting through the thin partitions.

Conceive, then, what must be her rage when the young captives, ignorant

of her fury and their danger, make imprudent efforts to escape from

their cradles, hum and sing aloud their little cicala song, which

is peculiar to the mother of the bees, and so clearly announces to

the queen the presence of the pretenders? The foresight of the bees,

which, to guard against all accidents, has thus reared up the young

mothers, involves them then in difficulty. A frightful combat impends,

a wholesale massacre; the old queen-mother, were she allowed, would not

spare one of those odious females. Separation is preferable to civil

war. The aged sovereign, agitated and distraught, runs everywhere, and

seems to say: "Let those who love me, follow me." She raises a song of

departure, and all labour is suspended.

Determined to follow her, numbers of the bees make the necessary

preparations, and eat a supply of food which will last them several

days. The excessive agitation is manifested by a sudden change of

temperature; from 28° C., the heat of the hive mounts up to 30° or

32°,--a condition of things intolerable to the bees, for to respire

easily is a peculiar feature of their organization. In the extreme

heat they are all bathed in sweat. Therefore they must either set out

or die. The mother sallies forth, and they rush headlong after her.

They buzz and whirl for a moment round the abandoned home, and then

dart a little further away, describing in the air the most fantastic

and incredible flights. The air is darkened with them. At length some

settle upon the branch of a neighbouring tree, then numerous others

take their places, along with the queen. They cling to one another, and

droop downwards in a large cluster. Tranquillity is re-established. The

other bee communities having taken the alarm, and fearing the invasion

of the fugitives, have guarded their gates, and reinforced their

ordinary posts; but now, seeing them settled, they breathe freely, and

return to their occupations.

[Illustration]

Meanwhile some prudent and faithful messengers are despatched from

the cluster to examine the neighbouring localities best adapted for

a new establishment. M. Debeauvoys was the first to observe this act

of prudence, this special and prudent mission of inspection for the

information and guidance of the new colony. A hollow tree, or a cavity

in the rock, protected from the north wind, and near a brook where they

can conveniently drink, are the conditions which weigh most with our

prudent emigrants. A hive fully prepared and already furnished with

honey they do not regard with indifference. They are very decisive in

their movements, being directed by an excellent sense.

Shall we affirm that they have quitted without regret the native land

where they toiled so successfully? And that, having once forsaken it,

they think of it no more? By no means. The mother especially,--"giddy"

as they call her,--has her fancies for return, and twice--nay,

thrice--persists in going back, carrying with her the too devoted

colony.

What would befall if, in these home-visits, she found herself face to

face with the new queen whom the non-emigrating people have substituted

in her place? There would be a combat. And this, too, happens without

emigration, when, spite of all the efforts that are made to prevent

her, a young mother, having forced her way through the wall of her

apartment, reveals to the old queen the detested object of her

jealousy. A duel then infallibly takes place. However, as each knows

the other to be armed with a mortal dart, their natural cowardice would

moderate their fury, and limit the struggle to a few harmless shocks,

and an innocent wrestle, like the pugilistic display of paid athletes.

But the people who gather round and look on from a near point of view

are very grave, and mean the affair to be so. Division in the community

would be the greatest of all evils. Moreover, they are so economical

and temperate for themselves, so parsimonious for others, that they

take into consideration, I am sure, the enormous cost that would

result from the establishment of a couple of queens. Each one of them,

royally nourished as they are, is a serious trouble to the republic.

The State would be ruined if it had to pay a double budget. Therefore

one of them must die. And hence arises a strange spectacle, completely

characteristic of the singular spirit of this people: the object of

adoration, recently gorged, and brushed, and caressed,--if she recoil,

is led back to the combat, is impelled and driven into it, until one

of the two antagonists contrives to leap upon the other, and from its

bended and superjacent abdomen plunges into the latter's entrails the

irremissible poignard.

Unity is thus secured. The survivor, who, if conquered, would have been

flung aside without regret, now that she is victorious becomes the idol

and living deity of the commonwealth; but let her remember, on the

express condition of perpetuating the people and proving continuously

prolific.

Let us suppose a deplorable misfortune,--that every mother has

perished. What then becomes of the orphaned world? Does it fall, as

some have asserted, into complete demoralization? Does such a calamity

entail a furious anarchy, a universal pillage of the people by the

people themselves? By no means, says M. Debeauvoys. A few hours of

trouble, pain, wrath, and apparent delirium follow. The bees flutter

to and fro in great agitation, and suspend their work; for a moment

they even neglect the nurslings. But a people so grave and dignified

at bottom soon resume their dignity, and remember what they owe to

themselves. The mother is dead? Long live the mother! We know how to

create another. What we were yesterday, so are we to-day.

The last will be first. They turn to the youngest child of the people,

who has barely opened her shell, who has not had time to undergo the

confinement of a narrow cradle, who has not yet grown lean on the

scanty fare of an artisan. This fare is not honey, but merely the dust

of flowers which naturalists call _bees' bread_. Those who have been

previously fed upon poorer fare will remain little; they no longer

possess the faculty of transformation.

But this young bee, so soft and so tender, will become whatever you

will; and in order that she may develop into a true female, a bee of

love, and a prolific mother, what is necessary? Liberty. Let them

provide her with a vast cradle where her young life may float, and

agitate, and develop, at ease. It will cost three cradles destroyed

to provide for hers, and the lives of three infants, who will perish

before birth; but what matter, if in a year she supplies the nation

with ten thousand?

The consecration of the mother of the people is that living nourishment

which the people extract from themselves, and in which they mingle

their bee-sweetness with the balmy essence of the flowers. A strong and

noble nourishment, rich in the intoxicating perfume of aromatic herbs,

richer in the virginal love concentrated upon it by thirty thousand

sisters for the behoof of the marvellous child who belongs to them all.

On the third day the child sees its cradle extended by an ornament

intended to make it still freer,--a pyramid reversed. On the fifth only

do they seal it up, to the intent that she may sleep peacefully, and

accomplish her metamorphosis in peace. And then the anxiety increases.

They guard the beloved sleeper who will be to-morrow the common soul,

and will inspire by her love the labours of the people. They guard

her, and they wait upon her, but with the haughty dignity of a people

who adore only their own handiwork, chosen by them, nourished by them,

created by them, and to be unmade by them. It is their pride that at

need they know how to create a god.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: CONCLUSION.]

[Illustration]

Conclusion.

The bee and the ant reveal to us the lofty harmony of the insect.

Both, in their high intelligence, are of superior rank as artists,

architects, and the like. The bee is more, a geometer; the ant is

before all remarkable as an educator.

The ant is frankly and strongly republican, having no need of a living

and visible symbol of the community, lightly esteeming and governing

with sufficient rudeness the soft and feeble females who perpetuate

the race. The bee, on the other hand, more tender apparently, or less

reasoning and more imaginative, finds a moral support in the worship of

the common mother. For her community of virgins it is, so to speak, a

religion of love.

Among both the ants and bees maternity is the social principle; but

fraternity also takes root, flourishes, and springs to a glorious

stature.

Our book, begun in a profound obscurity, terminates in a fulness of

light.

To form a correct judgment of insects, you must examine and estimate

their achievements and their societies. If their organization rank

so low as has been said, so much the more are they to be admired for

accomplishing such noble works with such inferior organs.

[Illustration]

Observe that the most advanced works are executed by those (as, for

example, the ants) who have no special implements to facilitate them,

but must supply the want by skill and invention.

Were they not so diminutive, what consideration we should extend to

their arts and labours! Comparing the cities of the termites with the

cabins of the negro, the subterranean galleries of the ants with the

little excavations of our Tourangeaux of the Loire, how we should

dwell on the superior skill of the insects! Is it stature, then, which

changes your moral judgments? What are the proportions which will merit

your esteem?

* * * * *

Let us add, that if this book do not modify the opinion of the reader,

it has greatly modified our own. This, in the course of our labour,

has undergone a considerable change. We thought we were going to study

things, and found them _souls_.

Close daily observation, initiating us into their ways and habits,

developed in our minds a sentiment which animated our study, but also

complicated it,--respect for their persons and lives.

"What say you? An ant's existence? Nature holds them cheaply, renews

them incessantly, prodigalizes lives, sacrifices them to one another."

[Illustration]

Yes, but because she makes them. She bestows life and withdraws it; has

the secret of their destinies, and that of the compensations in the

course of possible progress. But as for us, we have no power over them,

except to make them suffer.

* * * * *

This is a grave reflection. We are not talking here of any childish

sensibility. On the contrary, neither children nor men of science

cherish any such feeling. But a man--man accustomed to reason with

himself and estimate his acts--will not lightly deprive any creature of

that gift of life which it is utterly out of his power to confer on the

most insignificant. This consideration impressed us strongly. And at

first a person, a woman, more impressionable and more scrupulous than

myself, who had come hither with the design of making a collection of

the insects of Fontainebleau, hesitated, deferred the task; and then,

having interrogated her conscience, felt compelled to renounce it.

Without uttering a word of censure upon scientific collections, which

are absolutely indispensable, it is certain that we ought not to find

a pastime in death. Note that many of these creatures are much less

important in form and colour than by attitude and movement, which

cannot be preserved at the extremity of a pin!

Our first discussion of this kind was in reference to the fate of

a very remarkable butterfly (a sphinx, if I mistake not), which we

caught in a net to examine for a moment. I had admired it for several

days, coming and going among the flowers,--not, like most of its race,

flying hap-hazard, but choosing them discreetly, and then, with a very

fine, very long and arrowy proboscis, sucking by small sips, and very

quickly withdrawing, as if acted upon by a steel spring. The movement

was one of incomparable grace, of coquettish sobriety; just as if it

said: "Enough for to-day,--enough! But, to-morrow!" I have never seen

anything more graceful.

It is only a gray butterfly, and not at all remarkable. Who that sees

it dead would divine that, in charming nimbleness, it is the favourite

of Nature, in which she has exhausted all her grace?

We opened the net. And not long afterwards we had the pleasure of

seeing the same butterfly, which, in bad weather, came one evening to

take shelter with us, and found a resting-place in our chamber. In the

morning, wishful to enjoy the sunshine, it flew away.

* * * * *

I ought to add, moreover, that all the shipwrecked unfortunates of

the latter end of autumn, guided by a very sure but very surprising

instinct, willingly came to our house,--some on a temporary visit,

others to remain with us. A young bullfinch, in a bad condition,

and who had evidently met with more than one adventure, arrived all

bewildered, and even on the first day ate from our hands. The same

thing happened with a still more miserable creature,--a little tiny

red-tail, which had been barbarously deprived of its head-feathers that

it might be sold for a nightingale. This creature, so ill-treated by

men, which might justly have been afraid of them, not only took at the

very first the seed from our hands and lips, but would not sleep except

on the mistress's finger.

As for insects, their domestication is impossible. But many,

nevertheless, seem able to live with man, to appreciate peaceable

people and mildness of character. Last winter, two pretty red

lady-birds had taken up their residence on our table, among our books

and papers, which were being constantly moved about. What to give them,

we knew not; they passed the whole season without eating, or appearing

to receive any injury. The warmth of the apartment seemed agreeable to

them.

* * * * *

A strong September wind is now blowing, and, this very day, has cast

in upon us a beautiful reddish-coloured caterpillar. Though she had

not come of her own accord, but in spite of herself, we felt that we

ought to respect misfortune. We did not know from what plant she had

been torn, but supposed from her motions that she had been carried away

at the moment she had begun to spin. We presented her with a variety

of leaves; but none of them pleased her taste. She moved to and fro,

displaying an extraordinary agitation. We supposed she wished to find

rest upon a branch, but the rain fell in torrents. As many caterpillars

and larvæ work underground, we brought it some earth. But this, too,

was useless. Thinking she might like a web at a time when she was

engaged in weaving, we placed her on the lace-work of a cushion which

lay in the window; but the lace was cold and coarse, and did not please

her. Moreover, the wind, the little wind which entered, would have

cruelly frozen her during a whole winter. Finally, by a feminine marvel

of intuition, we concluded that, since she was about to weave silk, she

would like the silk-velvet lining of our microscope.

Plainly, it was the very thing she herself would have chosen. Installed

in the evening, by the morning she had made herself at home in this

soft, warm, and sheltered place. She had already spun, and hastily

extended her threads to right and left, as if fearing she might be

disturbed. Then, during the day, her work having been respected, she

saw that she had miscalculated her measurements, and that her cocoon

was too short; she destroyed a third of it, to resume the fabric from

that point on better proportions.

Behold, then, microscope, and scalpel, and all our instruments

expelled. What could we do? The confiding animal had taken up a

position at our fireside, and would not withdraw from it. Life had

driven out Science. Grave study, wait! for awhile thou art adjourned.

During the winter we respected the sleep of the chrysalis.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Illustrative Notes.]

[Illustration]

Illustrative Notes.

NOTE 1.

_The Meaning of this Book._--It has sprung wholly from the heart.

Nothing has been given up to the intellect, nothing to systems. We have

abstained from entering into scientific disputes.

If the following formula should seem to you too systematic, pass over

it. We have not sought to embody a dogma in it. We would only simplify,

if possible, the point of view, and place it in the reader's power to

embrace the whole significance of the book.

The point of departure is violent. It is the gigantic and necessary

war waged by the insect upon all morbid or encumbering life that might

prove an obstacle to life. A terrible war, an infernal toil, which,

ensures the safety of the world.

This powerful accelerator of the universal passage should destroy like

fire. But to secure the sharpness of action such a mission requires,

it is necessary that its own transformations be accelerated, its life

compressed; that from love to death, and death to love, it revolve

in a burning circle. However brief may be this circle, it cannot be

accomplished but at the cost of painful metamorphoses, which resemble a

series of successive deaths.

Among most insects, marriage means the death of the father; maternity,

the death of the mother. Thus the generations pass away without knowing

one another. The mother loves her daughter, anticipates her birth,

often immolates herself for her sake, but will never see her.

This cruel contradiction, this harsh denial which Nature opposes to the

most pathetic aspirations of love, apparently inflames and irritates

it. It gives everything unreservedly, knowing that it is for death.

It draws from it two powers; on the one hand, unheard _tongues of

light and colour_, ravishing phantasmagorias, in which love is not

translated, but expands in rays, and pharos-fires, and torches, and

burning sparks. It is the appeal to the rapid present, the lightning

and the thunder of happiness. But the love of the to come, the

foreseeing tenderness for that which not yet is, is expressed in

another fashion by the astonishingly complex and ingenious creation of

a storehouse of implements, whence all our mechanical arts have derived

their most perfect models. Usually this grand apparatus of tools serves

but for a day; it enables them at the moment they forsake the orphan to

improvise the cradle which shall continue the mother, shall perpetuate

the incubation when the mother ceases to exist.

But how? Must she indeed perish? Can there be no exception to the

pitiless law? In hot climates, especially, many mothers may survive.

What if these mothers united together to deceive destiny, by

associating so many brief existences in one common and lasting life in

which their children should find an eternal mother?

How shall we elude death?--Let us create society.

The society of mothers. The insect is essentially a female and a

mother. The male is an exception, a secondary accident,--frequently,

too, an abortion, a caricature of an insect.

The dream of the female--maternity, and the safety of her child--the

preservation of the future--leads her to create the community, which

secures her own safety.

This society can only perpetuate itself by ensuring its existence

against the season of sterility. Hence results a need of accumulation.

Hence proceed labour and economy.

But Nature, eluded by the effort and the toil,--I was going to say,

the virtue,--does not lose its rights. Beaten on the one side, on the

other it reacts upon the commonwealth, and grievously oppresses it.

This self-protecting society, while rescuing immense multitudes from

death and prolonging the common existence, multiplies the mouths to be

fed, and is often overloaded. If its members would not die of famine,

they must live on a very scanty regimen, must preserve alive a limited

number of fertile females, and condemn the majority, or nearly the

whole of the females to celibacy. Reared for virginity and labour,

sterilized from the cradle in their maternal powers, they are by no

means of barren intellect. The extinction of certain faculties seems to

strengthen the others.

Such is the institution, ingeniously severe, of aunts or adoptive

mothers. With too little sexual feeling to desire love, they possess

enough to wish for children, to love and adopt them. They are both less

than mothers, and more than mothers. Should invasion or ruin befall

the hive or the ant-hill, the true mothers consult their own safety in

flight; the devoted aunts or sisters know no other thought but that of

saving the children.

Elevated by this factitious maternity and disinterested love above

itself, the insect surpasses all other creatures,--even those which,

like the mammals, are evidently superior in organization. It teaches us

that organism is not everything, and that there is a potency in life

which acts strongly beyond the range and in despite of the organs.

Those species which, like the ants, have no special instruments to

facilitate their work, are invariably the most advanced.

The noblest work of the world, the most elevated goal to which its

inhabitants tend, is the community,--by which I mean a society strongly

consolidated. The only being, besides Man, who seems to reach this

goal, is undoubtedly the Insect.

No other creature approaches it. The most sublime and charming, the

Bird, is, through these very qualities, also the most individual. Its

society is the family; its community, the nest; its associations are

only collocations of nests for the sake of security. Those mammals

which, approach us so nearly, and impress us so strongly by their

advanced organisation,--I mean, the beaver,--show wonderful powers

of combination for the execution of their task; but, when the work

is done, they retire to their own houses and families, isolated by

the very tenderness of their domestic affections. The assembly of the

beavers is, as it were, a colony of builders and engineers, where each

one lives apart; but they are not citizens, and it is not a city.

* * * * *

The city is only to be found in the insect world. Separated from man by

many degrees in organism, the insect approaches him more closely than

any other being in the supreme work of his life,--which is, to live for

the many. It has not those touching signs of close relationship which

render the higher animals so interesting to us. It has no blood; it has

no milk. But I recognize it as akin by one loftier attribute: it has

the social sense.

* * * * *

An ignorant dogmatism had long asserted that the very perfection

of these insect-societies depended on their automatism. But modern

observation has proved, that if the conditions are varied, and

unforeseen obstacles and difficulties placed in their way, they

confront them with vigour and calm sense, and with the resources of an

unfettered ingenuity,

It is a world of _method_, which, at need, can show itself

_unrestrained_.

A world which, presently, in its original mission of combat and

destruction, seemed to us an atrociously fatal force; but which

afterwards, by the influence of its maternal devotion, became a world

of social harmony, preaching a lofty morality.

But is _maternity_ all? No; the community of life introduces the insect

to the threshold of a still higher rank of sentiments. Even among those

which are isolated--among the necrophori, for example, and the pilulary

scarabæi--_fraternal_ co-operation has a beginning. They render mutual

services, and fly to the assistance of one another, co-operating in

certain works. Among the sociable insects the feeling is carried to a

considerable height; the bees feed one another, mouth to mouth, and

stint themselves to supply their sisters. A very safe, and by no means

romantic observer, saw an ant dressing the wound of another ant which

had lost an antenna, by pouring on it some honey-dew to close it up and

protect it from the air.

See now how far we have advanced from our starting-point, where the

insect appeared to us a pure voracious element, a machine of absorption.

A great, a sublime metamorphosis, more marvellous than that of the

moultings and transformations which guided the egg, the grub, the

nymph, to the assumption of wings.

It is a world strange to man, but singularly parallel to our own,

though having no mutual mode of communication. We invent scarcely

anything which has not previously--though for a long time unknown to

us--been invented by the insect.

What have the great animals discovered? Nothing. Apparently their

warmth of life, and their red blood, obscure their mental light.

On the contrary, the insect world, free from a heavy apparatus of flesh

and blood intoxication, more subtly sensitive, and moved by a nervous

electricity, seems a frightful world of spirits.

Frightful? No. If terror sit at the threshold of science, safety is

found in its _penetralia_. At the first glance the living energy of

the invisible may startle us; and with a shudder of alarm we may

contemplate in the animalcule the likeness, some flashes of the

individuality, or a certain undefinable something which seems like a

counterfeit, of man.

These gleams, which so troubled the great Swammerdam, and made him

recoil with dread, are precisely the circumstances that give me

encouragement. Yes; all see, all feel, and all love: a miracle truly

religious! In the material infinite which deepens under my eyes, I

recognize, for my reassurance, a moral infinite. The individuality

hitherto claimed as a monopoly by the pride of the chosen species, I

see generously extended to all, and conferred even upon the least. The

gulf of life would have seemed to me deserted, desolate, barren, and

godless, had I not everywhere discovered the warmth and tenderness of

the Universal Love in the universality of the soul.

[Illustration]

NOTE 2.

_Our Authorities._--In a book which puts forward no scientific

pretensions, the book of an unlearned writer dedicated to unlearned

readers, we do not hesitate to confess that our method of study was

very indirect. If we had commenced with subtle classificators or minute

anatomists, or with dry manuals of instruction, perhaps we should

have been checked at the first step. But we approached this science

on its attractive side--through the great historians of the insect,

who have united the delineation of its habits with the description

of its organs. Our mind had received a strong and decisive blow (if

we may so speak) from the hooks of the two Hubers on the Bees and

the Ants. The impression was so great, that thereafter we read with

interest what one does not usually read continuously, Réaumur's six

quarto volumes of _Mémoires_--an immortal book, which must always be

a standard authority. Neither the contemptuous reaction of Buffon,

nor the anatomical works, of superior exactness on special points,

which have since been produced, should cause it to be forgotten.

Réaumur was, as it were, the central point of our studies, and from

him we went back to the illustrious masters of the seventeenth

century, Swammerdam and Malpighi; next, we descended to those of the

eighteenth, the Lyonnets, Bonnets, and Geers; finally, to our modern

writers, Latreille, Duméril, Lepelletier, Blanchard,--to the fertile

and audacious school of the Geoffroy Saint-Hilaires and the Audouins,

gloriously supported by Ampère and Goethe. While profiting by the noble

treatises which sum up the main results of the science, like those

of Lacordaire, we by no means neglected the admirable monographs of

the present, century,--those of Léon Dufour (scattered through the

_Annales des Sciences Naturelles_, and other collections), the grand

work of Walckenaër on the Spiders, the colossal labour of Strauss

on the Cockchafer--a monument of the first class, which can only be

compared to Lyonnet's treatise on the Caterpillar. As for details drawn

from travellers, we shall hereafter have an opportunity of referring

to them. We shall also acknowledge our debt to foreign writers,--to

Kirby, Smeathman, Lund, and others. For the anatomy of the insect, as

for general anatomy, we cannot too strongly recommend the admirable

and usefully enlarged specimens prepared by our excellent master, Dr.

Auzoux.

[Illustration]

NOTE 3.--Book i., Chap. iii.

_On Insect Embryos, Invisible Animalcules, Infusorias as the

Predecessors or Forerunners of the Insect, &c._--The work of the

_vermets_ has been observed, in Sicily, by M. de Quatrefages.--As for

the microscopic fossils, the infusorias, &c., their great _coup de

théâtre_ has been Ehrenberg's discovery. See his _Mémoires_ in the

_Annales des Sciences Naturelles_, Second Series, vols, i., ii., vi.,

vii., viii. In volume i., p. 134, for 1834, he specifies the point at

which Cuvier left the science, and how much his discovery has added to

it.

Upon the living world, upon the processes at present in operation

for the creation of little spheres, on those humble constructors who

accomplish such great things, we owe all our information to the English

voyagers, the Nelsons,[S] the Darwins, and others. They are minute and

very simple observers, generally timid in their assertions, which have

been of the boldest character, they having seen the very heart of the

mystery, and caught Nature in the act. Read Darwin (whose researches

have been most ably summed up by Sir Charles Lyell) for information on

the prodigious manufacture of chalk, divided alternately between the

fishes and the polypes, which are building up islands with it, and will

soon construct continents.

[Footnote S: "Nous devons tout aux navigateurs Anglais, aux Nelson, aux

Darwin," etc.]

England alone, that immense _poulpe_ whose arms enfold the earth, and

who incessantly _feels_ and examines it, could observe it thoroughly in

its distant solitudes, where at its ease it continues its everlasting

procreation. The great theories formerly advanced in explanation of the

cataclysms, epochs, and revolutions of the earth, will lose, perhaps,

something of their importance. For we know now that everything is in a

state of constant change.

Does Europe perceive that quite a complete literature has sprung from

Great Britain in the last twenty years? I describe it as an immense

commission of inquiry into the condition of the globe, undertaken by

the English. They alone could do it. And why? Because other nations

_travel_, but only the English _reside_. They daily recommence at all

points of the earth the life-study of a Robinson Crusoe: and this

is done by a crowd of isolated observers, led abroad by commercial

speculation, and hence so much the less systematical in their inquiries.

[Illustration]

NOTE 4.--Book i., Chap. iv.

(_Love and Death._) _On the Female Apparatus._--Réaumur,--and, in fact,

every writer,--has admired the manner in which the weapons of war

become the instruments of maternal love. M. Lacase, in a very beautiful

thesis, the result of independent observations, and a continuation of

the analogous works of an eminent master, Léon Dufour, has treated this

subject with great anatomical preciseness. An original and important

point of his labour is, undoubtedly, his demonstration, conformably

to the views of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Serres, Audouin, and others,

"that the very various armours which prolong the abdomen imply the

modification, or even the sacrifice, of one or two of its posterior

rings." Thus Nature apparently operates upon a fixed, amount of

substance, only increasing one part at the expense of others, which are

shortened or transformed.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

NOTE 5.--Book i., Chap. v.

_The Chilly Offspring of the Insect._--"But," the reader will exclaim,

"what labour! How terrible a law of continuous efforts to be imposed

on young beings, as yet but ill provided with tools, and without, that

superb arsenal of implements which at a later stage we admire in the

insect. How protracted are the means devised for their defence, which

would be much sooner accomplished if they were born less soft, a

little firmer, and somewhat less impressionable."

Yes; but in that case they would be just so far unfitted for the

essential circumstance which ensures their development. Nature

wishes them to be soft, ay, and very soft, that they may more easily

undergo the moultings and painful changes which are imperative upon

them,--which moultings, if the insect-substance were hard, would

inflict upon it the most severe injuries. By instinct they are aware

of this, and dread extremely lest their bodies should harden. The

_processionary_ caterpillars, for example, though covered thickly with

hair, conceal themselves from the sun under ample curtains. And they

are also mindful to issue forth only in the evening, when the damp and

misty air may preserve their salutary humidity.

NOTE 6.--Book i., Chap. vii.

_The Appearance of the Perfect Insect._--The anatomy of the insect

has been the theme of one of the greatest disputes of our time. Some

one having visited Goethe, soon after the French Revolution of July

1830:--"Well, well," inquired the illustrious sage, "have they settled

the question?" And as the traveller seemed to think he referred to the

political question, "Oh, it is something of far greater importance!"

said Goethe; "I refer to the great duel between Cuvier and Geoffroy."

The world took part in it. Strauss and others remained faithful to

Cuvier. The great physicist Ampère, in an anonymous article inserted in

the first volume of the _Annales des Sciences Naturelles_, adopted the

opinions of Geoffroy, Audouin, and Serres, and even expressed them with

a juvenile audacity that these anatomists, in their modesty, had not

displayed.

All the complex details of their proceedings had been extracted and

prepared [by Madame Michelet] for the present volume with a patience

and persevering love such as could be inspired only by a true and

tender religion of Nature. Barbarian that I am, I must sacrifice this

arduous labour, which, perhaps, would not be much relished by the

public to whom I address myself.

The place which the insect occupies in the animal creation is very

clearly defined in Lacordaire's excellent _résumé_:--"Equal to the

vertebrates in the energy of its muscular fibre, scarcely inferior to

them in the organization of its digestive canal, superior even to the

bird by the quantity of its respiration, it falls below the molluscs

through the imperfection of its system of circulation. Its nervous

system is less concentrated than that of many of the crustacea."

(Lacordaire, vol. ii., p. 2.)

Has the insect a brain? It is a disputed question. The nervous

apparatus which, in the molluscs, has not found, so far, a centre,

tends, it is true, in the insect, towards centralization. Two

longitudinal strings of nerves, which run through the entire length

of the body, abut on the nerves of the head, which are not massed

as in the higher animal. In the wasp, however, has been discovered

a firm, whitish substance, strongly resembling the brain. But this

would seem exceptional. Even in the head of insects remarkable for

their intelligence, you will find only simple nervous ganglions, not

differing in any respect from those which compose the two threads.

This inferiority of organization does but render more surprising the

superiority of the insect in art and sociability to all other animals,

even to the principal mammals (with a single exception). Here at the

highest point of the ladder, there at the lowest, it occupies, on the

whole, a middle place; and is, as it were, in the scale of existence,

an energetic mediator between life and death.

[Illustration]

NOTE 7.--Book ii., Chap. i.

_Swammerdam._--We refer to the inaugurator and martyr of our science,

the creator of the instrument which has enabled men to follow up

his discoveries,--a great inventor in many senses,--specially for

the preparation of anatomical specimens. The reader should study

his _Biblia Naturæ_, in Boerhaave's edition, ornamented with fine

illustrations (two vols. folio), and not in the incomplete French

abridgment, published in the _Mémoires_ of the Academy of Dijon, which

gives the scientific results, but no trace of the man.

We do not undertake to write the history of Entomology. A good

abridgment will be found at the end of M. Th. Lacordaire's

_Introduction à l'Entomologie_.

[Illustration]

NOTE 8.--Book ii., Chap. iv.

_The Insect as Man's Auxiliary._--The ingenious work which I here

confute, and which, assuredly, cannot be read with gratification, is

entitled,--_Les Insectes, ou Réflexions d'un amateur de la chasse aux

petits oiseaux_, par E. Gand, _Lecture faite à l'Académie d'Amiens_

(26th December 1856).

A remark which I make a few pages further on, in reference to the

necessity of a popular teaching of natural history, well deserves

to gain attention. The wealth and morality of the world would be

doubled if this teaching could be universal. M. Emile Blanchard's

important work, _Zoologie Agricole_ (in folio, 1854), gives the very

useful history of the principal insects injurious to our ordinary

or ornamental plants. M. Pouchet, in his excellent _Mémoire_ on the

Cockchafer, enumerates the principal authors who have described the

destructive insects. The United States Congress has entrusted to Mr.

Harris the preparation of a history of them.

[Illustration]

NOTE 9.--Book ii., Chap. v.

_Light and Colour._--My description of tropical climates is borrowed

from a large number of travellers,--Humboldt, Azara, Auguste,

Saint-Hilaire, Castelneau, Weddell, Charles Waterton, and others. For

Brazil and Guiana, I have been greatly indebted to the exceeding

courtesy of M. Ferdinand Denis, whose knowledge of those countries is

so perfect.

Paris possesses several fine collections of insects, besides that of

the Museum. One of the best-known is Doctor Bois Duval's (lepidoptera).

An establishment exclusively devoted to the sale of insects may be

found at No. 17 Rue des Saints-Pères. The magnificent collection to

which I refer on page 176, is that of M. Douë, who most readily showed

it to us, and explained it with infinite complaisance.

The anecdote which concludes chapter xii. (_The Ornament of Living

Flames_) is related, in reference to the women of Santa Cruz in

Bolivia, by the always accurate Dr. Weddell. The Indian phrase,

"Replace it whence thou borrowedst it," is recorded by Waterton.

[Illustration]

NOTE 10.--Book ii., Chap. viii.

_Renovation of Human Arts by Study of the Insect._--Who has not seen

that for a long time the art of decoration has made no progress, does

but incessantly repeat itself? When a particular subject has lasted

ten years, men think to rejuvenate it with a few variations. In a life

of half a century I have several times seen this rotation of fashion,

which would appear singularly monotonous if we did not possess in so

high a degree the gift of forgetfulness.

The decorative art, instead of seeking its renovation in the things

of old, would profit greatly by drawing its inspiration from the

infinity of beauties distributed throughout Nature. They abound and

superabound:--

1st, In the highly accented forms of tropical plants. Ours only produce

their effect in masses, and on a grand scale.

2nd, In those of a great number of the lower animals, radiata,

and others; in many of the little floating molluscs, living and

imperceptible flowers, the design of which, when enlarged, might

suggest some very original ideas.

3rd, In certain parts of the most despised creatures; as, for example,

in the eyes of the fly.

4th, In the forms, designs, and colours one detects in the thickness

of the living tissue; as, for example, on lifting with the scalpel

the strata of the wing-sheath of the beetles. Nature, which has so

embellished the surface, has hidden, perhaps, still more beauty in

the depth. Nothing is finer than the vital fluids, when seen in the

mobility of their circulation, and in the delicate canals where

that circulation is accomplished and defined. They speak to us less

eloquently, and impress us less forcibly by the splendour of the

glittering leaves among which they circulate, than by the expressive

forms in which we divine the mystery of their life. These are their

visible energies.

[Illustration]

NOTE 11.--Book ii., Chaps. ix. and x.

_The Spider._--These two chapters are mainly the result of our own

observations. We have profited, however, by several authorities;

especially by the capital and classical work, the grand labour

of Walckenaër,--which is of importance both for the description,

classification, and moral history of the Spiders.

Azara tells us that in Paraguay the natives spin the cocoon of a great

orange-coloured spider fully an inch in diameter. Sir George Staunton,

the English ambassador to China, in his "Travels in Java" (vol. i., p.

343) informs us that the epeiras of Asia weave such stout webs that

they can only be cut with a sharp-edged instrument; at the Bermudas,

their webs are capable of arresting the progress of a bird as big as a

thrush (Richard Stafford, _Coll. Acad._, ii., p. 156).

Doctor Lemercier, our learned bibliographer, has lent to me (from his

personal collection) a rare and very clever _brochure_ by Quatrefages

on the hygrometrical sensibility of spiders, on their prescience

of variations of the temperature--which we might very well turn to

advantage--and on the skilful exposure of their webs.

The formation of their beautiful and poetical autumn-webs, which are

called _Virgin's Threads_, is very clearly explained by Des Étang, in

the _Mémoires de la Société Agricole de Troyes_, for 1839.

In reference to the spider's most terrible enemy, the ichneumon, some

curious details are given in the fourth volume of the _Memoirs_ of the

American Society. In order to preserve it for its little ones, it does

not kill its victim, but, if one may so speak, etherizes it by pricking

it, and distilling into the wound a venom which apparently paralyzes it.

My remarks on the terror of the male in his amorous advances are based

upon those of De Geer, and Lepelletier, in the _Nouveau Bulletin de la

Société Philomathique_, pt. 67, p. 257.

Finally, the master-work of the spider, the ingeniously

constructed house and door of the _Mygale_ of Corsica, has been

completely described and drawn by an observer whom one can trust

implicitly,--Audouin (followed by Walckenaër, and others).

[Illustration]

NOTE 12.-Book iii., Chap. i.

_The Termites._--The beautiful illustrations of Smeathman would merit

reproduction, and the translation of his book (ed. 1784), now very

rarely met with, ought to be reprinted. The interesting additional

details collected by Azara, Auguste, Saint-Hilaire, Castelneau, and

others, might be added, so as to make a complete monograph.

[Illustration]

It is by no means a matter of slight import to recognize that the true

and grand principle of art, so long misunderstood in the Middle Ages,

has been always followed to the very letter by creatures of so low an

order, in their surprising constructions.

The fact I have related in reference to the subterranean mining of

Valencia by the termites, will be found in Humboldt's "Travels in

Equinoctial America."

As for La Rochelle, read the interesting chapter in M. de Quatrefages'

_Souvenirs d'un Naturaliste_.

NOTE 13.--Book iii., Chap. ii.

_The Ants._--The migrations of the tropical ants, say Azara and

Lacordaire, sometimes last over two or three days. They are to be

compared in continuousness and frightful numbers only to the clouds

of pigeons which, in North America, obscure the sky for several

days in succession (see Audubon). Lund (_Annales des Sciences

Naturelles_, 1831, vol. xxiii., p. 113) gives a curious picture of

these ant-migrations. They are terribly warlike, and the Americans

amuse themselves by opposing in a duel the _visiting ant_ (Atta) to

the _Araraa_ ant. The latter, though the weaker, prevails through the

potency of its poison.

As for our European ants, my brother-in-law, M. Hippolyte Mialaret,

transmits to me a curious fact, which, I believe, has not before been

observed. He gave them a medley of various kinds of grain,--wheat,

barley, rye,--which they employed in their buildings. Having opened the

ant-hill, he found the grains carefully classified, and distributed on

different stories,--wheat, for example, on the second, barley on the

third,--the different kinds being nowhere mixed.

An excellent Italian dissertation by M. Giuseppe Gené would induce one

to believe Huber mistaken in his assertion that the mother ant can by

her unaided self found a community. After her fecundation she retires

into a corner, where she plucks off her wings, and waits. There some

prowling ants discover, feel, and recognize her, her and her eggs sown

on the ground, with much prudence and even visible mistrust. Afterwards

they explore the country round about with an infinite circumspection,

always coming back to the mother, and hesitating long before they

decide. At length, their numbers increasing, they definitively adopt

her, and set to work.

The indomitable perseverance of the ants is celebrated in a beautiful

Oriental legend of I know not what Asiatic prince,--Tamerlane, I

believe. Beaten and defeated several times in one campaign, he was

seated, almost despairing, in the depth of his tent. An ant mounted the

side. Several times he made it drop, but it invariably reascended. He

was curious to see how long it would persevere, and twenty-four times

threw it to the ground without discouraging it. Then he grew tired,

and moreover he was full of admiration. The ant conquered. So he said:

"Let us imitate it. We too will conquer as the ant has done." But for

the ant, the hero had missed the Empire of Asia.

[Illustration]

NOTE 14.--Book iii., Chap. iii.

_Flocks of the Ants._--Nearly every plant nourishes grubs, which are

embellished with the most varied, and frequently the most dazzling

colours. The rose-tree aphis, when I examined it through a microscope,

seemed to me of a very pleasant bright green. Thrown on its back, it

displayed a very big belly, and a very small ungainly head, which

appeared to be neither more nor less than a sucker, while it agitated

all its limbs. On the whole, I took it to be an innocent creature,

which should inspire no repugnant feeling. One can understand how the

ants absorb the honey-dew upon its body. (See Bonnet and others, in

reference to their prodigious fecundity.)

[Illustration]

NOTE 15.--Book iii., Chap. v.

_The Wasps._--Before speaking of this terrible species, in which,

perhaps, we see revealed the loftiest energy of nature, I ought to

have spoken of its modest neighbour, the drone. Réaumur, who is not

sufficiently known as a writer, and who frequently displays much

grace of style, says, very pleasingly, that the poor drones, in their

rough little societies, when compared with the royal communities of

the wasps and bees, are mere rustics or savages, and their nests so

many hamlets, but that we find a pleasure, even after having visited

great capitals, in resting our eyes on the simplicity of villages and

villagers. (Réaumur, _Mémoires_, vol. vi., p. iii. preface, and p. 4

text.) Notwithstanding their simplicity, the drones are industrious,

and have their characteristic manners and virtues. The poor males, so

despised elsewhere, are more happily employed here in a society where

the lofty speciality of art, not being so strikingly developed in the

females, proves less humiliating; they are almost the equals of their

spouses, who do not massacre them, as the wasps and bees do their

destined husbands.

[Illustration]

NOTE 16.--Book iii., Chap. viii.

_The Wax-making Bees. An Aristocracy of Artists._--I here follow,

in the main, the authority of M. Debeauvoys, in his _Guide de

l'Apiculteur_ ("The Bee-keeper's Manual"), ed. 1853. In this little

but important book he has made the all-important distinction which

escaped Huber's notice, and separated the great wax-making architects

from the little gleaners and nurses. But I ask his permission to trust

rather to M. Dujardin on the general character of the bees. They are,

undoubtedly, choleric, and of a very dry temperament; the liqueurs and

perfumes of the flowers excite them, and compel them frequently to

quench their thirst. But in themselves they are sufficiently gentle,

and can even be tamed. M. Dujardin, having renewed every day the

provisions of a poor hive, was readily recognized by the bees, who flew

towards him, and ran over his hands without stinging him. The annual

destruction which they consummate of their males is a common law with

them; the wasps, and other necessitous tribes, living in dread of

famine at the epoch when the flowers disappear. In America they are

looked upon as the sign of civilization. The Indians see in the bee the

type of the white race, and in the buffalo the precursor of the red.

(Washington Irving, "Tour in the Prairies.")

The bees, as sisters and aunts, remind one of the Germany of

Tacitus:--"The aunt is there held in higher esteem than the mother." It

must have resembled a country of bees.

M. Pouchet, whom I have already cited several times, has been

good enough to furnish me with a very interesting anecdote of the

mason-bees:--

"In Egypt and Nubia, which I traversed some few months ago, these

hymenoptera and their buildings are so abundant that the ceilings of

certain temples and those of some hypogea are entirely covered with

them, and they absolutely mask the sculptures and hieroglyphics. These

nests frequently form there a succession of layers; and in certain

localities they are superimposed one upon another in sufficient

numbers to form a kind of stalactite suspended to the vaulted roofs

of the monuments. In their construction the bee makes use of Nile mud

only; and when she has deposited therein her progeny, she seals them

up with a delicately wrought cover, which the young bee, after having

undergone its various metamorphoses, lifts off and flies away. But

these nests are often broken up by a species of lizard, which, by means

of its singularly sharp nails, climbs to the ceilings. There it wages

incessant war against the mason-bees while they are building their

nests, or rather it may be seen crashing through the walls to devour

their young progeny."

[Illustration]

NOTE 17.--Conclusion, p. 337.

_A Feminine Intuition._--A great question of method which the future

will clear up, is, to know how far woman will one day master the

sciences of life, and to what extent the study of these sciences will

be shared between the two sexes. If sympathy for animals, long and

patient tenderness, the persevering observation of the delicatest

objects, were the only qualities which this study demanded, it

would seem as if woman ought to make the best naturalist. But the

life-sciences have another and a far gloomier aspect, which repels and

affrights; and it is so, because they are at the same time the sciences

of death.

However, in this very century, the grand and leading discovery,

all-important for the knowledge of the higher insects, belongs to a

maiden, the daughter of a scientific naturalist of French Switzerland,

Mademoiselle Jurine. She has found that the bee-workers, who were

thought to be _neuters_ (of neither the one nor the other sex), were

really females, attenuated by their exceedingly narrow cradles and

inferior regimen. Now, as these workers form nearly the whole people

(except five or six bred as queens, and a few hundred males), it

follows that the hive of twenty or thirty thousand bees is female. Thus

the predominance of the feminine sex, the general law of insect life,

has obtained its supreme confirmation. There are _no neuters_; neither

among the bees, nor the ants, nor all the superior tribes of insects.

The males are a small exception, a secondary accident. I feel able to

assert that, on the whole, _the insect is female_.

Mademoiselle Jurine's discovery has also revealed to us the true

character of the maternity of adoption, an admirably original

characteristic of these insects, and the elevated law of

disinterestedness and sacrifice which is the ennoblement of their

communities.

An undoubtedly inferior, but still distinguished merit to that of

accomplishing great discoveries, is that of representing animals to us

by pen or pencil in their true forms, their movements, and the general

harmony of the things with which they are associated. No art seems to

belong more naturally to woman. A woman has commenced it.

The illustrious Audubon has won just admiration for his representation

of the bird in its complete harmonies, its animal and vegetable

medium, on the plants which feed, near the enemy which assails

it. But it has been too generally forgotten that the model of his

harmonious paintings, which present us with so true a picture of life,

was furnished by a woman, Sybille de Mérian. Her handsome volume

(_Métamorphose des Insectes de Surinam_, folio, in three languages, ed.

1705), was the first in which this admirable method was invented and

skilfully applied.

She is called "_Mademoiselle_," though she was married. The name of

"_dame_" was in her time still restricted to women of noble birth. And

she remains "Mademoiselle;" is never cited except under her maiden

name. Her books, from their pure science and great perseverance, give

one the idea of a person lifted above the world of persons, and wholly

devoted to art and nature.

I have dedicated to her a word or two, but without speaking of her

life. A native of Bâle, the daughter, sister, and mother of celebrated

engravers, and herself an excellent painter of flowers upon velvet,

she long resided at Frankfort and Nurenberg. She experienced great

misfortunes, her husband being ruined and having separated from her.

She then sought refuge in a mystical society, analogous to that which

had formerly consoled Swammerdam. The religious spark of the new

science, _the theology of insects_, as a contemporary terms it, here

produced a strong impression on her mind. She was acquainted with

Swammerdam's great idea, the unity of metamorphoses, and with that

which Malpighi had flung in the face of astonished Europe in his book

on the silkworm: "Insects have a heart."

What! they have a heart, like us! Which, like ours, throbs and stirs

at the impulse of their desires, their fears, or their passions!

How touching an idea! How well adapted to influence a woman!--But is

this a fact? Many long denied it, but doubt has been impossible since

the truth was demonstrated in 1824 in M. Strauss's treatise on "The

Cockchafer."

Madame de Mérian, then, started from the silkworm. But her curiosity

and artistic eagerness embraced everything. Contrasted with her dull

and sombre Germany, Holland, with its rich American and Oriental

collections, appeared to her like the great museum of the tropics.

There she established herself, and with her pencil made its collections

her own. Those faëry cemeteries, glittering with the beauty of the

dead, did but whet in her the desire to investigate life in the region

where it most luxuriates. At the age of fifty-four she set out for

Guiana; and, during a two years' residence in its dangerous climate,

collected the drawings and paintings which were to inaugurate art in

natural history.

In this branch of labour, the stumbling-block of the artist, who is an

artist and nothing more, is that he may do very well, but make Nature

coquettish, add the pretty to the beautiful, and flourish those graces

and daintinesses which secure for a scientific treatise the favour of

fashionable ladies. Nothing of this kind is discernible in the work

of Sybille de Mérian, but on every page a noble vigour, a masculine

gravity, a courageous simplicity. At the same time, a close inspection,

especially of the illustrations coloured by her own hand, discovers

in the softness, breadth, and fulness of the plants, their lustrous

and velvety freshness,--the tones either dead or enamelled, and, as it

were, flowered, which the insects offer,--the tender, conscientious

hand of a woman who has laboured upon the whole with a reverence

inspired by love.

We have seen (p. 180), in our chapter on the _Fire-Flies_, the

astonishment of the timid German in a world so new, when the savages

brought her its living materials,--venomous herbs, lizards, and snakes,

and fantastic serpents. But the very strangeness of this nature, the

emotions of the painter trembling before her models, the restless

attention with which she sought to seize the changeful physiognomy

and mysterious manners, while keenly agitating her heart, did but

awaken her genius. Never satisfied by her representations of fugitive

realities, she believed she could make each insect properly known only

by painting it under all its forms (caterpillar, nymph, butterfly). And

this not contenting her, she placed beneath it the vegetable on which

it fed, and by its side the lizard, serpent, or spider which fed upon

_it_. Thus, the mutuality and exchange of nature was clearly shown; you

saw clearly that formidable circulation, which, in tropical climates,

is so rapid. Each of those fine plates, so harmonious and so complete,

instructs not only by its truthful details, but inspires a profound

sympathy with life, which is a very different and much more valuable

teaching.

One thing strikes me, which, however, this love explains. She has

painted side by side those creatures which devour one another. They

draw close together, each faces its antagonist, and you conclude that a

frightful duel is imminent. But she has generally concealed the tragic

struggle. She has shrunk from painting death.

How much more terrible would have been her task had she advanced

further, had she opened and dissected her models, and forced her

feminine pencil to the lugubrious painting of anatomical detail!

And here we recognize the precise limit at which women are arrested in

the study of the natural sciences. They are incapable of confronting

it on _both_ sides. Michael Angelo has finely said:--"Death and life

are but one. They are the work of the same master and the same hand."

But women do not submit. Between them and death no compact is possible.

This is very easily understood; they themselves _are_ life in all its

prolific charm. They are born to give it. Whatever breaks the charm is

a horror to them. Death, and especially pain, are not only antipathic,

but almost incomprehensible. They feel that only happiness and joy

should attend upon woman. Pain inflicted by a woman's hand appears to

them very justly as a horrible contradiction.

In the natural sciences there are three things they may master, the

three things of life: the _incubation_ of the new being,--that is, the

tenderness of its earliest care; the _education_, the _nourishment_

(to speak as our fathers did) of the young adults; finally, the

_observation_ of manners, and the subtle intelligence of means of

inter-communication with all species. By the aid of these three woman's

arts, man may conciliate and gradually appropriate the inferior

species, and even many of the insect species. To them belong entirely

the arts of domestication. If childhood were less cruel, or at least

not harshly insensible, it might share these womanly cares. For Woman,

as a soft and tender child, full of pity, is the mediator of all nature.

But as for death, as for pain, as for the lights which science draws

from them, do not speak of them to Woman. Here she halts, leaves you on

the road, and will go no further forward.

She asserts--and the assertion may appear of some real weight, even to

the sedatest minds--that science, of late years, has marched by two

contrary roads: on the one hand, demonstrating by the study of manners

and of organs that animals are not a world apart, but far more like

ourselves than had been generally supposed; and on the other, when it

has so clearly proved their great resemblance, and consequently their

capacity of suffering, it ordains that we shall inflict upon them the

most exquisite and most cruelly protracted agonies.

Science, on this terrible side, closes itself more and more against

women. Nature, while inviting them to penetrate it, checks them at

the same time by their excessive tenderness of feeling, and by the

reverence for life with which she herself has inspired them.

Of all creatures, insects seemed the least worthy of being trained (or

domesticated). They were sought only for their colours. Nevertheless,

whoever sees in the pursuit nothing but a simple pleasure, will perhaps

reflect for a moment when he learns that impaled insects frequently

endure their torture for whole years! (See Lemahoux, and, particularly,

the excellent _Bulletin de la Société Protectrice des Animaux_,

September and October 1856.)

* * * * *

In proportion as women understand the maternal instincts of the

creatures I have described, their infinite tenderness, and their

ingenious prevision for the objects of their love, it will become

impossible for mothers to immolate _these_ mothers, and put them to the

torture!

Last Words.

The originating sentiment of the studies of which this book is the

outcome, is also that which induced their suspension. Their primary

attraction was found in Huber's revelation, in his vivid manifestation

of the individuality of the insect. But that which at the first

glance had seemed so paradoxical and incredible, was discovered, when

verified, to fall below the reality. The spectacle of so many labours

and efforts for the common good, the sight of all these meritorious

existences, imposes a duty upon our conscience, and renders it more and

more difficult to treat as a _thing_ the being which wills, and toils,

and loves!

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

Analysis of Subjects.

INTRODUCTION.

I. THE LIVING INFINITE.

The writer is moved by the voices of the Insect World, 17

Which leads him to reflect on its infinite numbers, 18

He refers to his loving study of the Bird, 19

But the Bird had a language; has the Insect?, 19

In many respects, it is an enigma which Man cannot read, 20

The Insect, however, has much to plead in self-defence, 21

And between it and Man the interpreter must be Love, 22

II. OUR STUDIES AT PARIS AND IN SWITZERLAND.

How the writer was assisted by his wife in his study of the Insect, 23

Woman is well adapted for such a study; and why?, 24

Her tact, delicate touch, and fine perception fit her for microscopical

investigations, 24

The writer seeks a retirement near Lucerne, 25

The surrounding scenery is described, 26

And he bursts into a glowing panegyric on the Alps, 27

He discourses on the communion between Nature and the human soul, 28

This leads him to a description of a forest scene, 29

In which he recognizes the presence of the insect life, 30

A constant conflict is maintained between the insect and the plant, the

latter being aided by the bird, 30

In the forest, then, lurks a hidden world, 31

The interior of an ant-hill is suddenly revealed, 32

And the effects become visible of the formic acid, 33

Reflections suggested by the ruined ant-hill, 34

III. OUR STUDIES AT FONTAINEBLEAU.

The writer resolves to attempt an explanation of the Insect World, 36

For such a task Fontainebleau offers peculiar facilities, 37

A description is given of the characteristics of the place, 38

It has had a peculiar charm for many illustrious men, 41

Its individuality is distinct, 42

In the course of a day it presents various changes, 43

Yet throughout all a certain sameness is preserved, 44

This is expressed by the "genius loci,", 45

The voices of the forest, 46

Its suitability as a place for reflection, 47

Its suggestiveness; the very oaks enforce a lesson of perseverance, 48

Its life centres in its quarrymen and its ants, 49

The contrast between their several labours, 50

Nature and the Individual, 51

The writer enters upon the composition of the present book, 52

BOOK THE FIRST.--METAMORPHOSIS.

CHAPTER I.--TERROR AND REPUGNANCE IN CHILDHOOD.

Extract from a Journal written by Madame Michelet, 57

In which she describes a visit to the home of her childhood, 58

Painful impressions produced by the ravages of the insect, 59

The writer comments on the repugnance with which the insect is viewed by

childhood, 60

This repugnance is not shared by Nature, 61

Which protects and facilitates it in its work, 62

On account of its vast importance, 63

CHAPTER II.--COMPASSION.

The artist Gros reproached a young man for cruelty towards a

butterfly, 67

Lyonnet, the naturalist, equally insisted on tenderness towards even

the lowest forms of life, 68

The writer records his adventure with a drone, which he thought he had

killed, in a moment of petulance, 69

His happiness on seeing the insect revive, 70

Begins to study the insect seriously on a Swiss tour, 70

Another extract from Madame Michelet's Journal, 71

In which is described the author's retreat at Montreux, on the shore of

the Lake of Geneva, 72

In one of her walks she observes a combat between a stag-beetle and a

beetle of inferior size, 73

The stag-beetle is captured for the purpose of examination, 73

Effect produced upon it by the vapour of ether, 74

Regret expressed at having terminated its existence, 75

CHAPTER III.--WORLD-BUILDERS.

The world _outside_ the terrestrial world, 79

The world of the infinitely little; the architects of ocean, 80

The immense works accomplished by the lower organisms, 81

They build up reefs, banks, islands, 82

The manufacture of chalk described, 83

How a coral-island is gradually developed, 83, 84

Examples of the labours of the coral animals, 85

CHAPTER IV.--LOVE AND DEATH.

Above these organisms in the scale of creation comes the insect, 89

Its individuality is explained; its mode of reproduction, 90

The insect-mother dies in producing her offspring, 91

But with extraordinary sagacity has provided for its support and

protection, 92

Examples given of this wonderful maternal provision, 93

The labours of the mother-bee explained, 94

Reference to the "Nymphs of Fontainebleau," 95

CHAPTER V.--THE ORPHAN: ITS FEEBLENESS.

The insect enters upon life naked and necessitous, 99

But all its wants have been carefully anticipated, 100

Night, however, is the great protection of the embryo, 101

How it endeavours to guard against cold, 102

In its necessities originate its various industries, 103

After a time comes its season of trial, 104

Of which it exhibits a marvellous presentiment, and for which it

assiduously prepares, 105

CHAPTER VI.--THE MUMMY, NYMPH, OR CHRYSALIS.

The meaning of the insect to the ancient Egyptians, 109

The beetle was regarded as a symbol of Eternity, 110

Has modern science swept aside the ancient poetry? 110

That it is not so, is shown by Réaumur's discoveries, 111

Which show us the marvellous changes the insect undergoes, 112

And how in each stage of growth the next is prefigured, 113

However numerous or great the changes, the individuality is

preserved, 114

A future life is provided for, as in the case of the human embryo, 115

CHAPTER VII.--THE PHOENIX.

Out of gloom and obscurity emerges light, 119

The metamorphosis takes place, but the insect is not at a loss, 120

Nature furnishes each species with all its needs for the new life, 121

Its vital intensity is revealed by the brightness of its colouring, 122

Insects of gay attire are found in every region, 123

Even among the snows of the Alpine peaks, 124

BOOK THE SECOND.--MISSION AND ARTS OF THE INSECT.

CHAPTER I.--SWAMMERDAM.

The secret of the Insect World first discovered by Swammerdam, 129

A comparison instituted between him and Galileo, 130

His early years, his favourite occupations, and his collections of

insects, 131, 132

To assist him in his investigations he invented the microscope, 133

His patient labours rewarded by great discoveries, 134

Yet in his own country he was not honoured; it was in France that his

work met with due appreciation, 135

Ardent devotion to science brings on premature decay, 136

Dark clouds overcast his later years, 137

He died at the age of three and forty, 138

His work is carried on by Leuwenhoek and Malpighi, 139

CHAPTER II.--THE MICROSCOPE: HAS THE INSECT A PHYSIOGNOMY?

In the infinitely little lurks a great attraction for man, 143

Hence its study should be systematically undertaken, 144

Michelet applies himself to his microscope, 145

And examines the structure of an insect's wing, 146

Next, he studies the organization of the ant, 147

He describes what he saw, 148

A complex apparatus, both for action and defence, 150

What it is which separates us from the insect, 151

CHAPTER III.--THE INSECT AS THE AGENT OF NATURE IN THE ACCELERATION

OF DEATH AND LIFE.

The language of the insect in its immense energy, 155

A glance is directed at the order of Nature, 156

And it is shown that all forms of life must be kept within certain

limits, 156

Hence, one race preys upon another, and all Nature is a scene of

incessant combat, 157

In this work of destruction, and purification, the Bird and the Insect

play an important part, 158

The Coleoptera bring their surprising energies to the task, 159

The insect-tribes are therefore great sanitary agents, 160

The great Guiana ants afford an illustration, 161

And the beneficent labours of the spider have secured the respect of the

Siberians, 162

CHAPTER IV.--THE INSECT AS MAN'S AUXILIARY.

The want of insect-labour induced the potato disease, 165

Such is the dictum of an author, who thinks that the multiplication of

small birds has been destructive to insect-life; but no such

multiplication of birds has taken place, nor any such destruction of

insects, 165, 166

The Bird and the Insect are the joint purifiers of creation, 167

Some species of insects should be carefully preserved, 167

A sketch is given of their multifarious labours, 168

Of the services rendered by the scavenger-insects, 169

Of the value of certain insects as food, 170

As, for instance, in the case of the locust, 171

The law of retaliation illustrated, 172

CHAPTER V.--A PHANTASMAGORIA OF LIGHT AND COLOUR.

How does the insect express its intensity of vital force? 175

In various ways, but specially through its glowing hues, 176

Which are displayed with a profusion that astonishes and almost overcomes

the observer, 177

But are not inconsistent with an ingenious mimicry, 177

A diversion is made to the tropical forest, 178

Where the insect life is seen in its most splendid developments, 179

Like winged flames they haunt the leafy shades, 180

The fire-fly lights up the gloom, and also furnishes woman's beauty with

a living ornament, 181, 182

CHAPTER VI.--THE SILKWORM.

The exquisite structure of a woman's hair enlarged upon, 185

What can compare with it? Only the silkworm's thread, 186

Peculiar charm attending the silkworm's labours, 186

And the preciousness of the silken product, 187

Something is said about the use of silk in Mediæval France, 188

And on its excellence and fitness as a garment for Beauty, 189

CHAPTER VII.--INSTRUMENTS OF THE INSECT: AND ITS CHEMICAL ENERGIES,

AS IN THE COCHINEAL AND THE CANTHARIDES.

Hitherto the writer has treated only of the silk of the bombyx, 193

He now commends the culture of other silk-spinning species, 194

And is led to speak of the ingenious instruments with which insects are

provided, 194

And of their general powers and properties, 195

Something is said about their weapons, 196

And the malalis is spoken of, 197

CHAPTER VIII.--ON THE RENOVATION OF OUR ARTS BY THE STUDY OF THE INSECT.

The Fine Arts would profit by a close study of the insect, 201

Much might be learned, for instance, from the cockchafer's wing, 202

Nature is full of suggestive beauty, 203

Observe the enamels of the cicindela, 204

And those of the scarabæi, 205

Instead of copying from antique absurdities, go then to the

insect-collector's cabinet, 206

And its treasures will inspire the artist with new ideas, 207

CHAPTER IX.--THE SPIDER--INDUSTRY--STANDING STILL.

We come to the consideration of the spider, 211

Whose life is a lottery, and which is branded with ugliness, 212

It is, however, the type of the persevering worker, 213

An anecdote in illustration of its character, 214

Its web, and the mode of its construction, described, 215

Prudence and patience the characteristics of the spider, 216

All animals live by prey, and the spider has its foes, 217

Its existence is confined within a narrow circle, 218

And is easily terminated, 219

CHAPTER X.--THE HOME AND LOVES OF THE SPIDER.

Admirable construction of its web, 223

A glance at the retreat of the Agelena, 224

Still greater ingenuity is shown by the Mygale, 225

In the web lurks the weaver, always expectant, 225

A sensitive being, and subject to fancies of terror, 227

In his moments of love he is timorous and suspicious, 228

How he is affected by musical sounds, 229

BOOK THE THIRD.--COMMUNITIES OF INSECTS.

CHAPTER I.--THE TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS.

The habitations of the termites, erroneously called White Ants,

described, both externally and internally, 235, 236

A wonderful degree of skill shown in the erection of the great dome, 237

Yet the builders labour under specially difficult circumstances, 238

Their queen's fecundity; her offspring are tenderly treated, 239

Their numbers would be a terror to man, were they not checked by many

enemies, 240

An illustration is given of their terrible ravages, 241

CHAPTER II.--THE ANTS:--THEIR DOMESTIC ECONOMY--THEIR NUPTIALS.

Value of the ants as purifying and cleansing agents, 245

An incident at Barbadoes, 246

The carpenter-ants, and their ingenuity, described, 247

Singular affection which they display for the young, 251

They watch over them with incessant vigilance; their mode of

inter-communication, 251

A picture is given of the economy of an ant-hill, 252

In their labours the ants solve numerous problems by sheer intuition, 253

Their nuptials described as an idyllic poem, 254

What remained in the morning, 255

CHAPTER III.--THE ANTS: THEIR FLOCKS AND THEIR SLAVES.

The writer's pain at discovering among the ants the existence of

slavery, 259

Considerations which induced him to continue his studies, 260

He finds that the ants keep their "herds of cattle," 261

And discovers a reason for their apparent encouragement of slavery, 262

Mixed communities of ants; workers and warriors, 263

The workers are in reality the masters, though they seem to be

slaves, 264

A campaign described; red against black, 265

Ant-societies regulated on the principle of division of labour, 266

Their species undergo modifications in special circumstances, 267

The influence of intellect over brute force exemplified, 268

CHAPTER IV.--THE ANTS: CIVIL WAR--EXTERMINATION OF THE COMMUNITY.

It is the punishment of the tyrant that he cannot readily set free his

captive, 271

The caged nightingale, and the clod of earth, 272

This clod proves to contain a republic of carpenter-ants, 272

An effort is made to found a new community; difficulties in the way, 273

An encounter between the carpenter-ants and some mason-ants, 274

In which the victory is on the side of the Little, 275

Who carry off the young of the conquered, 276

A digression comments on the helplessness of the nymph, or larva, 277

And points out its exceeding suffering in the hands of a victorious

enemy, 278

The writer is shocked by the relentless cruelty of the conquerors, 279

Who have left but one poor fugitive to mourn the death of his

companions, 280

CHAPTER V.--THE WASPS: THEIR FURY OF IMPROVISATION.

Sensation caused by the intrusion of a wasp, 283

A panegyric on a much-abused insect, 284

Excessive industry of the wasp, 285

It works, first, as a paper manufacturer; and next, as a mason, 285

It builds its city with curious forethought and ingenuity, 286

The mother-wasp, a remarkable example of self-sacrifice, 287

Wasps distinguished by their patriotic enthusiasm, 288

At the approach of winter they dissolve the commonwealth, 289

CHAPTER VI.--"THE BEES" OF VIRGIL.

The Virgilian fable of Aristæus misunderstood, 293

Intended by the poet as a parable of immortality, 294

The writer was accidentally led to an understanding of its true

significance, 295

A visit to the cemetery of Père-Lachaise, 295

Here certain lonely graves were haunted by a flight of bees, 296

Yet they were not true bees; they were two-winged, 297

They were "the Bees" of which Virgil had sung, 298

CHAPTER VII.--THE BEE IN THE FIELDS.

Contrast between the Plant and the Animal, 301

Yet the one life in some points approaches the other, and a certain

sympathy exists between the flower and the winged insect, 302

What the flower owes to the bee, 303

And how far the bee is indebted to the flower, 303

A panegyric upon the bee, which gives new life to vegetation, 304

The bee's visit to the flower, and what takes place, 305

It gives and it receives; evening and morning, 306

How the bee suffers from cold, keen airs, 307

"Farewell, madam, and many thanks!" 308

CHAPTER VIII.--THE BEES AS ARCHITECTS: THE CITY.

Artistic character of the bee-hive, 311

Its government democratic, or a modified constitutional monarchy, 312

The writer traces the foundation and erection of the hive, 313

Its division into cells, and their differences of construction, 314

The thoughtful skill of the builders illustrated, 315

As in their improvised defence against the ravages of the Sphinx

Atropos, 316

Which may be accepted as a proof of the intelligence of insects as

distinguished from instinct, 317

CHAPTER IX.--HOW THE BEES CREATE THE PEOPLE AND THE COMMON MOTHER.

Care of the bee for the nymph, or larva, 321

As it grows, so does its wonderful organization develop, 322

Special care bestowed on the future queen, 323

The queen bee has attributes of its own, 324

Her rage, when she becomes aware of the existence of possible rivals, 325

The community divided between the old love and the new, 325

An emigration takes place, 325

And a new commonwealth is established, 326

Sometimes the old queen and the new encounter one another, 327

In which case a deadly combat ensues, 328

And the victor becomes the idol of the people, 328

If both perish, the community, in a state of great excitement, proceed

to feed and bring up another, 329

Whom they will guard with loving loyalty, 329

CONCLUSION.

A comparison, and a contrast, between the bee and the ant, 333

All insects teach certain noteworthy lessons, 334

And, primarily, a reverence for life, 335

Various anecdotes from the writer's own experience are here brought

forward, in defence of the thesis that life is more precious than

science, 336

Illustrative Notes, 341

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