THE CRICKET: THE BURROW; THE EGG
Almost as famous as the Cicada, the Field Cricket, the denizen of the
greenswards, figures among the limited but glorious number of the
classic insects. He owes this honour to his song and his house. One
thing alone is lacking to complete his renown. By a regrettable
omission, the master of the art of making animals talk gives him hardly
two lines.
In one of his fables he shows us the Hare seized with terror at the
sight of his ears, which scandalmongers will not fail to describe as
horns at a time when to be horned is dangerous. The prudent animal
packs up his traps and makes off:
“Adieu, voisin Grillon,” dit-il; “je pars d’ici;
Mes oreilles enfin seraient cornes aussi.”
The Cricket answers:
“Cornes cela! Vous me prenez pour cruche!
Ce sont oreilles que Dieu fit.”
The Hare insists:
“On les fera passer pour cornes.” [63]
And that is all. What a pity that La Fontaine did not make the insect
hold forth at greater length! The good-natured Cricket is depicted for
us in a couple of lines which already show the master’s touch. No,
indeed, he is no fool: his big head might have found some capital
things to say. And yet the Hare was perhaps not wrong to take his
departure in a hurry. When slander is at your heels, the best thing is
to fly.
Florian [64] was less concise in his story, which is on another theme;
but what a long way we are from the warmth and vigour of old La
Fontaine! In Florian’s fable Le Grillon, there are plenty of flowery
meadows and blue skies; Dame Nature and affectation go hand in hand; in
short, we have the feeble artificialities of a lifeless rhetoric, which
loses sight of the thing described for the sake of the description. It
lacks the simplicity of truth and also the saving salt of humour.
Besides, what a preposterous idea, to represent the Cricket as
discontented, bewailing his condition in despair! All who have studied
him know, on the contrary, that he is very well pleased with his own
talent and his hole. This, moreover, is what the fabulist makes him
admit, after the Butterfly’s discomfiture:
I find more force and more truth in the apologue by the nameless friend
to whom I owe the Provençal piece, La Cigalo e la Fournigo. He will
forgive me if for the second time I expose him, without his consent, to
the dangerous honour of print. Here it is:
LE GRILLON
L’histoire des bêtes rapporte
Qu’autrefois un pauvre grillon,
Prenant le soleil sur sa porte,
Vit passer un beau papillon.
Un papillon à longues queues,
Superbe, des mieux décorés,
Avec rangs de lunules bleues,
Galons noirs et gros points dorés. [66]
“Vole, vole,” lui dit l’ermite,
“Sur les fleurs, du matin au soir;
Ta rose, ni ta marguerite
Ne valent mon humble manoir.”
Il disait vrai. Vient un orage
Et le papillon est noyé
Dans un bourbier; la fange outrage
Le velours de son corps broyé.
Mais la tourmente en rien n’étonne
Le grillon, qui, dans son abri,
Qu’il pleuve, qu’il vente, qu’il tonne,
Vit tranquille et chante cri-cri.
Ah! n’allons pas courir le monde
Parmi les plaisirs et les fleurs;
L’humble foyer, sa paix profonde
Nous épargneront bien des pleurs.
THE CRICKET
Among the beasts a tale is told
How a poor Cricket ventured nigh
His door to catch the sun’s warm gold
And saw a radiant Butterfly.
She passed with tails thrown proudly back
And long gay rows of crescents blue,
Brave yellow stars and bands of black,
The lordliest fly that ever flew.
“Ah, fly away,” the hermit said,
“Daylong among your flowers to roam;
Nor daisies white nor roses red
Will compensate my lowly home.”
True, all too true! There came a storm
And caught the other in its flood,
Staining her broken velvet form
And covering her wings with mud.
The Cricket, sheltered from the rain,
Chirped and looked on with tranquil eye;
For him the thunder pealed in vain,
The gale and torrent passed him by.
Then shun the world, nor take your fill
Of any of its joys or flowers;
A lowly fire-side, calm and still,
At least will grant you tearless hours! [67]
There I recognize my Cricket. I see him curling his antennæ on the
threshold of his burrow, keeping his belly cool and his back to the
sun. He is not jealous of the Butterfly; on the contrary, he pities
her, with that air of mocking commiseration familiar in the ratepayer
who owns a house of his own and sees passing before his door some
wearer of a gaudy costume with no place to lay her head. Far from
complaining, he is very well satisfied with both his house and his
violin. A true philosopher, he knows the vanity of things and
appreciates the charm of a modest retreat away from the riot of
pleasure-seekers.
Yes, the description is about right, though it remains very inadequate
and does not bear the stamp of immortality. The Cricket is still
waiting for the few lines needed to perpetuate his merits; and, since
La Fontaine neglected him, he will have to go on waiting a long time.
To me, as a naturalist, the outstanding feature in the two fables—a
feature which I should find repeated elsewhere, beyond a doubt, if my
library were not reduced to a small row of odd volumes on a deal
shelf—is the burrow on which the moral is founded. Florian speaks of
the snug retreat; the other praises his lowly home. It is the dwelling
therefore that above all compels attention, even that of the poet, who
cares little in general for realities.
In this respect, indeed, the Cricket is extraordinary. Of all our
insects, he alone, on attaining maturity, possesses a fixed abode, the
monument of his industry. During the bad season of the year, most of
the others burrow or skulk in some temporary refuge, a refuge obtained
free of cost and abandoned without regret. Several create marvels, with
a view to settling their family: cotton satchels, baskets made of
leaves, towers of cement. Some carnivorous larvæ dwell in permanent
ambuscades, where they lie in wait for their prey. The Tiger-beetle,
among others, digs itself a perpendicular hole, which it closes with
its flat, bronze head. Whoever ventures on the insidious foot-bridge
vanishes down the gulf, whose trap-door at once tips up and disappears
beneath the feet of the wayfarer. The Ant-lion makes a funnel in the
sand. The Ant slides down its very loose slope and is bombarded with
projectiles hurled from the bottom of the crater by the hunter, who
turns his neck into a catapult. But these are all temporary refuges,
nests or traps.
The laboriously constructed residence, in which the insect settles down
with no intention of moving, either in the happy spring or the woful
winter season; the real manor, built for peace and comfort and not as a
hunting-box or a nursery: this is known to the Cricket alone. On some
sunny, grassy slope he is the owner of a hermitage. While all the
others lead vagabond lives, sleeping in the open air or under the
casual shelter of a dead leaf, a stone, or the peeling bark of an old
tree, he is a privileged person with a permanent address.
A serious problem is that of the home. It has been solved by the
Cricket, by the Rabbit and, lastly, by man. In my neighbourhood, the
Fox and the Badger have holes the best part of which is supplied by the
irregularities of the rock. A few repairs; and the dug-out is
completed. Cleverer than they, the Rabbit builds his house by burrowing
wheresoever he pleases, when there is no natural passage that allows
him to settle down free of any trouble.
The Cricket surpasses all of them. Scorning chance refuges, he always
chooses the site of his abode, in well-drained ground, with a pleasant
sunny aspect. He refuses to make use of fortuitous cavities, which are
incommodious and rough; he digs every bit of his villa, from the
entrance-hall to the back-room.
I see no one above him, in the art of house-building, except man; and
even man, before mixing mortar to hold stones together, before kneading
clay to coat his hut of branches, fought with wild beasts for the
possession of a refuge in the rocks or an underground cavern.
Then how are the privileges of instinct distributed? Here is one of the
humblest, able to lodge himself to perfection. He has a home, an
advantage unknown to many civilized beings; he has a peaceful retreat,
the first condition of comfort; and nobody around him is capable of
settling down. He has no rivals until you come to ourselves.
Whence does he derive this gift? Is he favoured with special tools? No,
the Cricket is not an incomparable excavator; in fact, one is rather
surprised at the result when one considers the feebleness of his
resources.
Can it be made necessary by the demands of an exceptionally delicate
skin? No, among his near kinsmen, other skins, no less sensitive than
his, do not dread the open air at all.
Can it be a propensity inherent in the anatomical structure, a talent
prescribed by the secret promptings of the organism? No, my
neighbourhood boasts three other Crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus, de
Geer; G. desertus, Pallas.; G. burdigalensis, Latr.), who are so like
the Field Cricket in appearance, colour and structure that, at the
first glance, one would take them for him. The first is as large as he
is, or even larger. The second represents him reduced to about half his
size. The third is smaller still. Well, of these faithful copies, these
doubles of the Field Cricket, not one knows how to dig himself a
burrow. The Double-spotted Cricket inhabits those heaps of grass left
to rot in damp places; the Solitary Cricket roams about the crevices in
the dry clods turned up by the gardener’s spade; the Bordeaux Cricket
is not afraid to make his way into our houses, where he sings
discreetly, during August and September, in some dark, cool spot.
There is no object in continuing our questions: each would meet with no
for an answer. Instinct, which stands revealed here and disappears
there despite organisms alike in all respects, will never tell us its
causes. It depends so little on an insect’s stock of tools that no
anatomical detail can explain it to us and still less make us foresee
it. The four almost identical Crickets, of whom one alone understands
the art of burrowing, add their evidence to the manifold proofs already
supplied; they confirm in a striking fashion our profound ignorance of
the origin of instinct.
Who does not know the Cricket’s abode! Who has not, as a child playing
in the fields, stopped in front of the hermit’s cabin! However light
your footfall, he has heard you coming and has abruptly withdrawn to
the very bottom of his hiding-place. When you arrive, the threshold of
the house is deserted.
Everybody knows the way to bring the skulker out. You insert a straw
and move it gently about the burrow. Surprised at what is happening
above, tickled and teased, the Cricket ascends from his secret
apartment; he stops in the passage, hesitates and enquires into things
by waving his delicate antennæ; he comes to the light and, once
outside, he is easy to catch, so greatly have events puzzled his poor
head. Should he be missed at the first attempt, he may become more
suspicious and obstinately resist the titillation of the straw. In that
case, we can flood him out with a glass of water.
O those adorable times when we used to cage our Crickets and feed them
on a leaf of lettuce, those childish hunting-trips along the grassy
paths! They all come back to me to-day, as I explore the burrows in
search of subjects for my studies; they appear to me almost in their
pristine freshness when my companion, little Paul, already an expert in
the tactical use of the straw, springs up suddenly, after a long trial
of skill and patience with the recalcitrant, and, brandishing his
closed hand in the air, cries, excitedly:
“I’ve got him, I’ve got him!”
Quick, here’s a bag; in you go, my little Cricket! You shall be petted
and pampered; but mind you teach us something and, first of all, show
us your house.
It is a slanting gallery, situated in the grass, on some sunny bank
which soon dries after a shower. It is nine inches long at most, hardly
as thick as one’s finger and straight or bent according to the
exigencies of the ground. As a rule, a tuft of grass, which is
respected by the Cricket when he goes out to browse upon the
surrounding turf, half-conceals the home, serving as a porch and
throwing a discreet shade over the entrance. The gently-sloping
threshold, scrupulously raked and swept, is carried for some distance.
This is the belvedere on which, when everything is peaceful round
about, the Cricket sits and scrapes his fiddle.
The inside of the house is devoid of luxury, with bare and yet not
coarse walls. Ample leisure allows the inhabitant to do away with any
unpleasant roughness. At the end of the passage is the bedroom, the
terminal alcove, a little more carefully smoothed than the rest and
slightly wider. All said, it is a very simple abode, exceedingly clean,
free from damp and conforming with the requirements of a
well-considered system of hygiene. On the other hand, it is an enormous
undertaking, a regular Cyclopean tunnel, when we consider the modest
means of excavation. Let us try to be present at the work. Let us also
enquire at what period the enterprise begins. This obliges us to go
back to the egg.
Any one wishing to see the Cricket lay her eggs can do so without
making great preparations: all that he wants is a little patience,
which, according to Buffon, is genius, but which I, more modestly, will
describe as the observer’s chief virtue. In April, or at latest in May,
we establish isolated couples of the insect in flower-pots containing a
layer of heaped-up earth. Their provisions consist of a lettuce-leaf
renewed from time to time. A square of glass covers the retreat and
prevents escape.
Some extremely interesting facts can be obtained with this simple
installation, supplemented, if need be, with a wire-gauze cover, the
best of all cages. We shall return to this matter. For the moment, let
us watch the laying and make sure that the propitious hour does not
evade our vigilance.
It is in the first week in June that my assiduous visits begin to show
satisfactory results. I surprise the mother standing motionless, with
her ovipositor planted perpendicularly in the soil. For a long time she
remains stationed at the same point, heedless of her indiscreet caller.
At last she withdraws her dibble, removes, more or less perfunctorily,
the traces of the boring-hole, takes a moment’s rest, walks away and
starts again somewhere else, now here, now there, all over the area at
her disposal. Her behaviour, though her movements are slower, is a
repetition of what the Decticus has shown us. Her egg-laying appears to
me to be ended within the twenty-four hours. For greater certainty, I
wait a couple of days longer.
I then dig up the earth in the pot. The straw-coloured eggs are
cylinders rounded at both ends and measuring about one-ninth of an inch
in length. They are placed singly in the soil, arranged vertically and
grouped in more or less numerous patches, which correspond with the
successive layings. I find them all over the pot, at a depth of
three-quarters of an inch. There are difficulties in examining a mass
of earth through a magnifying-glass; but, allowing for these
difficulties, I estimate the eggs laid by one mother at five or six
hundred. So large a family is sure to undergo a drastic purging before
long.
The Cricket’s egg is a little marvel of mechanism. After hatching, it
appears as an opaque white sheath, with a round and very regular
aperture at the top; to the edge of this a cap adheres, forming a lid.
Instead of bursting anyhow under the thrusts or cuts of the new-born
larva, it opens of its own accord along a specially prepared line of
least resistance.
It became important to observe the curious hatching. About a fortnight
after the egg is laid, two large, round, rusty-black eye-dots darken
the front end. A little way above these two dots, right at the apex of
the cylinder, you see the outline of a thin circular swelling. This is
the line of rupture which is preparing. Soon the translucency of the
egg enables the observer to perceive the delicate segmentation of the
tiny creature within. Now is the time to redouble our vigilance and
multiply our visits, especially in the morning.
Fortune, which loves the persevering, rewards me for my assiduity. All
round this swelling where, by a process of infinite delicacy, the line
of least resistance has been prepared, the end of the egg, pushed back
by the inmate’s forehead, becomes detached, rises and falls to one side
like the top of a miniature scent-bottle. The Cricket pops out like a
Jack-in-the-box.
When he is gone, the shell remains distended, smooth, intact, pure
white, with the cap or lid hanging from the opening. A bird’s egg
breaks clumsily under the blows of a wart that grows for the purpose at
the end of the chick’s beak; the Cricket’s egg, endowed with a superior
mechanism, opens like an ivory case. The thrust of the inmate’s head is
enough to work the hinge.
The hatching of the eggs is hastened by the glorious weather; and the
observer’s patience is not much tried, the rapidity rivalling that of
the Dung-beetles. The summer solstice has not yet arrived when the ten
couples interned under glass for the benefit of my studies are
surrounded by their numerous progeny. The egg-stage, therefore, lasts
just about ten days.
I said above that, when the lid of the ivory case is lifted, a young
Cricket pops out. This is not quite accurate. What appears at the
opening is the swaddled grub, as yet unrecognizable in a tight-fitting
sheath. I expected to see this wrapper, this first set of baby-clothes,
for the same reasons that made me anticipate it in the case of the
Decticus:
“The Cricket,” said I to myself, “is born underground. He also sports
two very long antennæ and a pair of overgrown hind-legs, all of which
are cumbrous appendages at the time of the emergence. He must therefore
possess a tunic in which to make his exit.”
My forecast, correct enough in principle, was only partly confirmed.
The new-born Cricket does in fact possess a temporary structure; but,
so far from employing it for the purpose of hoisting himself outside,
he throws off his clothes as he passes out of the egg.
To what circumstances are we to attribute this departure from the usual
practice? Perhaps to this: the Cricket’s egg stays in the ground for
only a few days before hatching; the egg of the Decticus remains there
for eight months. The former, save for rare exceptions in a season of
drought, lies under a thin layer of dry, loose, unresisting earth; the
latter, on the contrary, finds itself in soil which has been caked
together by the persistent rains of autumn and winter and which
therefore presents serious difficulties. Moreover, the Cricket is
shorter and stouter, less long-shanked than the Decticus. These would
appear to be the reasons for the difference between the two insects in
respect of their methods of emerging. The Decticus, born lower down,
under a close-packed layer, needs a climbing-costume with which the
Cricket is able to dispense, being less hampered and nearer to the
surface and having only a powdery layer of earth to pass through.
Then what is the object of the tights which the Cricket flings aside as
soon as he is out of the egg? I will answer this question with another:
what is the object of the two white stumps, the two pale-coloured
embryo wings carried by the Cricket under his wing-cases, which are
turned into a great mechanism of sound? They are so insignificant, so
feeble that the insect certainly makes no use of them, any more than
the Dog utilizes the thumb that hangs limp and lifeless at the back of
his paw.
Sometimes, for reasons of symmetry, the walls of a house are painted
with imitation windows to balance the other windows, which are real.
This is done out of respect for order, the supreme condition of the
beautiful. In the same way, life has its symmetries, its repetitions of
a general prototype. When abolishing an organ that has ceased to be
employed, it leaves vestiges of it to maintain the primitive
arrangement.
The Dog’s rudimentary thumb predicates the five-fingered hand that
characterizes the higher animals; the Cricket’s wing-stumps are
evidence that the insect would normally be capable of flight; the moult
undergone on the threshold of the egg is reminiscent of the
tight-fitting wrapper needed for the laborious exit of the Locustidæ
born underground. They are so many symmetrical superfluities, so many
remains of a law that has fallen into disuse but never been abrogated.
As soon as he is deprived of his delicate tunic, the young Cricket,
pale all over, almost white, begins to battle with the soil overhead.
He hits out with his mandibles; he sweeps aside and kicks behind him
the powdery obstruction, which offers no resistance. Behold him on the
surface, amidst the joys of the sunlight and the perils of conflict
with the living, poor, feeble creature that he is, hardly larger than a
Flea. In twenty-four hours he colours and turns into a magnificent
blackamoor, whose ebon hue vies with that of the adult insect. All that
remains of his original pallor is a white sash that girds his chest and
reminds us of a baby’s leading-string. Very nimble and alert, he sounds
the surrounding space with his long, quivering antennæ, runs about and
jumps with an impetuosity in which his future obesity will forbid him
to indulge.
This is also the age when the stomach is still delicate. What sort of
food does he need? I do not know. I offer him the adult’s treat, tender
lettuce-leaves. He scorns to touch them, or perhaps he takes mouthfuls
so exceedingly small that they escape me.
In a few days, with my ten households, I find myself overwhelmed with
family cares. What am I to do with my five or six thousand Crickets, a
pretty flock, no doubt, but impossible to rear in my ignorance of the
treatment required? I will set you at liberty, my little dears; I will
entrust you to nature, the sovran nurse.
Thus it comes to pass. I release my legions in the enclosure, here,
there and everywhere, in the best places. What a concert I shall have
outside my door next year, if they all turn out well! But no, the
symphony will probably be one of silence, for the savage pruning due to
the mother’s fertility is bound to come. All that I can hope for is
that a few couples may survive extermination.
As in the case of the young Praying Mantes, the first that hasten to
this manna and the most eager for the slaughter are the little Grey
Lizard and the Ant. The latter, loathsome freebooter that she is, will,
I fear, not leave me a single Cricket in the garden. She snaps up the
poor little creatures, eviscerates them and gobbles them down at
frantic speed.
Oh, the execrable wretch! And to think that we place the Ant in the
front rank of insects! Books are written in her honour and the stream
of eulogy never ceases; the naturalists hold her in the greatest esteem
and add daily to her reputation, so true is it, among animals as among
men, that of the various ways of making history, the surest way is to
do harm to others. [68]
Nobody asks after the Dung-beetle and the Necrophorus, [69] invaluable
scavengers both, whereas everybody knows the Gnat, that drinker of
men’s blood; the Wasp, that hot-tempered swashbuckler, with her
poisoned dagger; and the Ant, that notorious evil-doer, who, in our
southern villages, saps and imperils the rafters of a dwelling with the
same zest with which she devours a fig. I need not trouble to say more:
every one will discover in the records of mankind similar instances of
usefulness ignored and frightfulness exalted.
The massacre instituted by the Ants and other exterminators is so great
that my erstwhile populous colonies in the enclosure become too small
to enable me to continue my observations; and I am driven to have
recourse to information outside. In August, among the fallen leaves, in
those little oases where the grass has not been wholly scorched by the
sun, I find the young Cricket already rather big, black all over like
the adult, with not a vestige of the white girdle of his early days. He
has no domicile. The shelter of a dead leaf, the cover of a flat stone
are enough for him; they represent the tents of a nomad who cares not
where he lays his head.
This vagabond life continues until the middle of autumn. It is then
that the Yellow-winged Sphex [70] hunts down the wanderers, an easy
prey, and stores her bag of Crickets underground. She decimates those
who have survived the Ants’ devastating raids. A settled dwelling, dug
a few weeks before the usual time, would save them from the spoilers.
The sorely-tried victims do not think of it. The bitter experience of
the centuries has taught them nothing. Though already strong enough to
dig a protecting burrow, they remain invincibly faithful to their
ancient customs and would go on roaming though the Sphex stabbed the
last of their race.
It is at the close of October, when the first cold weather threatens,
that the burrow is taken in hand. The work is very simple, judging by
the little that my observation of the caged insect has shown me. The
digging is never done at a bare point in the pan, but always under the
shelter of a withered lettuce-leaf, some remnant of the food provided.
This takes the place of the grass screen that seems indispensable to
the secrecy of the establishment.
The miner scrapes with his fore-legs and uses the pincers of his
mandibles to extract the larger bits of gravel. I see him stamping with
his powerful hind-legs, furnished with a double row of spikes; I see
him raking the rubbish, sweeping it backwards and spreading it
slantwise. There you have the method in its entirety.
The work proceeds pretty quickly at first. In the yielding soil of my
cages, the digger disappears underground after a spell that lasts a
couple of hours. He returns to the entrance at intervals, always
backwards and always sweeping. Should he be overcome with fatigue, he
takes a rest on the threshold of his half-finished home, with his head
outside and his antennæ waving feebly. He goes in again and resumes
work with pincers and rakes. Soon the periods of repose become longer
and wear out my patience.
The most urgent part of the work is done. Once the hole is a couple of
inches deep, it suffices for the needs of the moment. The rest will be
a long-winded business, resumed in a leisurely fashion, a little one
day and a little the next; the hole will be made deeper and wider as
demanded by the inclemencies of the weather and the growth of the
insect. Even in winter, if the temperature be mild and the sun playing
over the entrance to the dwelling, it is not unusual to see the Cricket
shooting out rubbish, a sign of repairs and fresh excavations. Amidst
the joys of spring, the upkeep of the building still continues. It is
constantly undergoing improvements and repairs until the owner’s
decease.
April comes to an end and the Cricket’s song begins, at first in rare
and shy solos, soon developing into a general symphony in which each
clod of turf boasts its performer. I am more than inclined to place the
Cricket at the head of the spring choristers. In our waste lands, when
the thyme and the lavender are gaily flowering, he has as his partner
the Crested Lark, who rises like a lyrical rocket, his throat swelling
with notes, and from the sky, invisible in the clouds, sheds his sweet
music upon the fallows. Down below the Crickets chant the responses.
Their song is monotonous and artless, but so well-suited, in its very
crudity, to the rustic gladness of renascent life! It is the hosanna of
the awakening, the sacred alleluia understood by swelling seed and
sprouting blade. Who deserves the palm in this duet? I should award it
to the Cricket. He surpasses them all, thanks to his numbers and his
unceasing note. Were the Lark to fall silent, the fields blue-grey with
lavender, swinging its fragrant censers before the sun, would still
receive from this humble chorister a solemn celebration.