THE FOAMY CICADELLA
In April, when the Swallow and the Cuckoo visit us, let us consider the
fields for a while, keeping our eyes on the ground, as befits the eager
observer of insect-life. We shall not fail to see, here and there, on
the grass, little masses of white foam. It might easily be taken for a
spray of frothy spittle from the lips of a passer-by; but there is so
much of it that we soon abandon this first idea. Never would human
saliva suffice for so lavish an expenditure of foam, even if some one
with nothing better to do were to devote all his disgusting and
misdirected zeal to the effort.
While recognizing that man is blameless in the matter, the northern
peasant has not relinquished the name suggested by the appearance: he
calls those strange flakes “Cuckoo-spit,” after the bird whose note is
then proclaiming the awakening of spring. The vagrant creature, unequal
to the toils and delights of housekeeping, ejects it at random, so they
say, as it pays its flying visits to the homes of others, in search of
a resting-place for its egg.
The interpretation does credit to the Cuckoo’s salivary powers, but not
to the interpreter’s intelligence. The other popular denomination is
worse still: “Frog-spit!” My dear good people, what on earth has the
Frog or his slaver to do with it? [85]
The shrewder Provençal peasant also knows that vernal foam; but he is
too cautious to give it any wild names. My rustic neighbours, when I
ask them about Cuckoo-spit and Frog-spit, begin to smile and see
nothing in those words but a poor joke. To my questions on the nature
of the thing they reply:
“I don’t know.”
Exactly! That’s the sort of answer I like, an answer not complicated
with grotesque explanations.
Would you know the real perpetrator of this spittle? Rummage about the
frothy mass with a straw. You will extract a little yellow,
pot-bellied, dumpy creature, shaped like a Cicada without wings. That’s
the foam-producer.
When laid naked on another leaf, she brandishes the pointed tip of her
little round paunch. This at once betrays the curious machine which we
shall see at work presently. When older and still operating under the
cover of its foam, the little thing becomes a nymph, turns green in
colour and gives itself stumps of wings fixed scarfwise on its sides.
From underneath its blunted head there projects, when it is working, a
little gimlet, a beak similar to that of the Cicadæ.
In its adult form the insect is, in fact, a sort of very small-sized
Cicada, for which reason the entomologist capable of shaking off the
trammels of nonsensical nomenclature calls it simply the Foamy
Cicadella. For this euphonic name, the diminutive of Cicada, the others
have substituted that horrible word Aphrophora. Orthodox science says,
Aphrophora spumaria, meaning Foamy Foambearer. The ear is none the
better for this improvement. Let us content ourselves with Cicadella,
which respects the tympanum and does not reduplicate the foam.
I have consulted my few books as to the habits of the Cicadella. They
tell me that she punctures plants and makes the sap exude in foamy
flakes. Under this cover, the insect lives sheltered from the heat. A
work recently compiled has one curious piece of information: it tells
me that I must get up early in the morning, inspect my crops, pick any
twig with foam on it and at once plunge it into a cauldron of boiling
water.
Oh, my poor Cicadella, this is a bad look-out! The author does not do
things by halves. I see him rising before the dawn, lighting a stove on
wheels and pushing his infernal contrivance through the midst of his
lucern, his clover and his peas, to boil you on the spot. He will have
his work cut out for him. I remember a certain patch of sainfoin of
which almost every stalk had its foam-flakes. Had the stewing-process
been necessary, one might just as well have reaped the field and turned
the whole crop into herb-tea.
Why these violent measures? Are you so very dangerous to the harvest,
my pretty little Cicada? They accuse you of draining the plant which
you attack. Upon my word, they are right: you drain it almost as dry as
the Flea does the Dog. But to touch another’s grass—you know it:
doesn’t the fable say so?—is a heinous crime, an offence which can be
punished by nothing less drastic than boiling water.
Let us waste no more time on these agricultural entomologists with
their murderous designs. To hear them talk, one would think that the
insect has no right to live. Incapable of behaving like a ferocious
landowner who becomes filled with thoughts of massacre at the sight of
a maggoty plum, I, more kindly, abandon my few rows of peas and beans
to the Cicadella: she will leave me my share, I am convinced.
Besides, the insignificant ones of the earth are not the least rich in
talent, in an originality of invention which will teach us much
concerning the infinite variety of instinct. The Cicadella, in
particular, possesses her recipes for aerated waters. Let us ask her by
what process she succeeds in giving such a fine head of froth to her
product, for the books that talk about boiling cauldrons and
Cuckoo-spit are silent on this subject, the only one worthy of
narration.
The foamy mass has no very definite shape and is hardly larger than a
hazel-nut. It is remarkably persistent even when the insect is not
working at it any longer. Deprived of its manufacturer, who would not
fail to keep it going, and placed on a watch-glass, it lasts for more
than twenty-four hours without evaporating or losing its bubbles. This
persistency is striking, compared with the rapidity with which
soapsuds, for instance, disappear.
Prolonged duration of the foam is necessary to the Cicadella, who would
exhaust herself in the constant renewal of her products if her work
were ordinary froth. Once the effervescent covering is obtained, it is
essential that the insect should rest for a time, with no other task
than to drink its fill and grow. And so the moisture converted into
froth possesses a certain stickiness, conducive to longevity. It is
slightly oily and trickles under one’s finger like a weak solution of
gum.
The bubbles are small and even, being all of the same dimensions. You
can see that they have been scrupulously gauged, one by one; you
suspect the presence of a graduated tube. Like our chemists and
druggists, the insect must have its drop-measures.
A single Cicadella is usually crouching invisible in the depths of the
foam; sometimes there are two or three or more. In such cases, it is a
fortuitous association, the fabrics of the several workers being so
close together that they merge into one common edifice.
Let us see the work begin and, with the aid of a magnifying-glass,
follow the creature’s proceedings. With her sucker inserted up to the
hilt and her six short legs firmly fixed, the Cicadella remains
motionless, flat on her stomach on the long-suffering leaf. You expect
to see froth issuing from the edge of the well, effervescing under the
action of the insect’s implement, whose lancets, ascending and
descending in turns and rubbing against each other like those of the
Cicada, ought to make the sap foam as it is forced out. The froth, so
it would seem, must come ready-made from the puncture. That is what the
current descriptions of the Cicadella tell us; that was how I myself
pictured it on the authority of the writers. All this is a huge
mistake: the real thing is much more ingenious. It is a very clear
liquid that comes up from the well, with no more trace of foam than in
a dew-drop. Even so the Cicada, who possesses similar tools, makes the
spot at which she slakes her thirst give forth a limpid fluid, with not
a vestige of froth to it. Therefore, notwithstanding its dexterity in
sucking up liquids, the Cicadella’s mouth-apparatus has nothing to do
with the manufacture of the foamy mattress. It supplies the raw
material; another implement works it up. What implement? Have patience
and we shall see.
The clear liquid rises imperceptibly and glides under the insect, which
at last is half inundated. The work begins again without delay. To make
white of egg into a froth we have two methods: we can whip it, thus
dividing the sticky fluid into thin flakes and causing it to take in
air in a network of cells; or we can blow into it and so inject
air-bubbles right into the mass. Of these two methods, the Cicadella
employs the second, which is less violent and more elegant. She blows
her froth.
But how is the blowing done? The insect seems incapable of it, being
devoid of any air-mechanism similar to that of the lungs. To breathe
with tracheæ and to blow like a bellows are incompatible actions.
Agreed; but be sure that, if the insect needs a blast of air for its
manufactures, the blowing-machine will be there, most ingeniously
contrived. This machine the Cicadella possesses at the tip of her
abdomen, at the end of the intestine. Here, split lengthwise in the
shape of a Y, a little pocket opens and shuts in turns, a pocket whose
two lips close hermetically when joined.
Having said this, let us watch the performance. The insect lifts the
tip of its abdomen out of the bath in which it is swimming. The pocket
opens, sucks in the air of the atmosphere till it is full, then closes
and dives down, the richer by its prize. Inside the liquid, the
apparatus contracts. The captive air escapes as from a nozzle and
produces a first bubble of froth. Forthwith the air-pocket returns to
the upper air, opens, takes in a fresh load and goes down again closed,
to immerse itself once more and blow in its gas. A new bubble is
produced.
And so it goes on with chronometrical regularity, from second to
second, the blowing-machine swinging upwards to open its valve and fill
itself with air, downwards to dive into the liquid and send out its
gaseous contents. Such is the air-measurer, the drop-glass which
accounts for the evenness of the frothy bubbles.
Ulysses, the favourite of the gods, received from the storm-dispenser,
Æolus, bags in which the winds were confined. The carelessness of his
crew, who untied the bags to find out what they contained, let loose a
tempest which destroyed the fleet. I have seen those mythological
wind-filled bags; I saw them years ago, when I was a child.
A peripatetic tinker, a son of Calabria, had set up between two stones
the crucible in which a tin soup-tureen and plates were to be remelted.
Æolus did the blowing, Æolus in the person of a little dark-skinned boy
who, squatting on his heels, forced air towards the forge by
alternately squeezing two goatskin bags, one on the right and one on
the left. Thus must the prehistoric bronze-smelters have performed
their task, they whose workshops and whose remains of copper-slag I
find on the hills near my home: the blast of their furnaces was
produced by these inflated skins.
The machine employed by my Æolus is pathetically simple. The hide of a
goat, with the hair left on, is practically all that is necessary. It
is a bag fastened at the bottom over a nozzle, open at the top and
supplied, by way of lips, with two little boards which, when brought
together, close up the whole apparatus. These two stiff lips are each
furnished with a leather handle, one for the thumb, the other for the
four remaining fingers. The hand opens; the lips of the bag part and it
fills with air. The hand closes and brings the boards together; the air
imprisoned in the compressed bag escapes by the nozzle. The alternate
working of the two bags gives a continuous blast.
Apart from continuity, which is not a favourable condition when the gas
has to be discharged in small bubbles, the Cicadella’s bellows works
like the Calabrian tinker’s. It is a flexible pocket with stiff lips,
which alternately part and unite, opening to let the air enter and
closing to keep it imprisoned. The contraction of the sides takes the
place of the shrinking of the bag and puffs out the gaseous contents
when the pocket is immersed.
He certainly had a lucky inspiration who first thought of confining the
wind in a bag, as mythology tells us that Æolus did. The goatskin
turned into a bellows gave us our metals, the essential matter whereof
our tools are made. Well, in this art of expelling air, an enormous
source of progress, the Cicadella was the pioneer. She was blowing her
froth before Tubalcain thought of urging the fire of his forge with a
leather pouch. She was the first to invent bellows.
When, bubble by bubble, the foamy wrapper covers the insect to a height
which the uplifted tip of her belly is unable to reach, it is no longer
possible to take in air and the effervescence stops. Nevertheless, the
gimlet that extracts the sap goes on working, for nourishment must be
obtained. As a rule then, in the sloping part, the superfluous liquid,
that which is not converted into foam, collects and forms a drop of
perfectly clear liquid.
What does this limpid fluid lack in order to turn white and effervesce?
Nothing but air blown into it, one would think. I am able to substitute
my own devices for the Cicadella’s syringe. I place between my lips a
very slender glass tube and with delicate puffs send my breath into the
drop of moisture. To my great surprise, it does not froth up. The
result is just the same as that which I should have with plain water
from the tap.
Instead of a plentiful, lasting, slow-subsiding foam, like that with
which the insect covers itself, all that I obtain is a miserable ring
of bubbles, which burst as soon as they appear. And I am equally
unsuccessful with the liquid which the Cicadella collects under her
abdomen at the start, before working her bellows. What is wrong in each
case? The foamy product and its generating liquid shall tell us.
The first is oily to the touch, gummy and as fluid as, for instance, a
weak solution of albumen would be; the second flows as readily as plain
water. The Cicadella therefore does not draw from her well a liquid
liable to effervesce merely by the action of the blow-pocket; she adds
something to what oozes from the puncture, adds a viscous element which
gives cohesion and makes frothing possible, even as a boy adds soap to
the water which he blows into iridescent bubbles through a straw.
Where then does the insect keep its soap-works, its manufactory of the
effervescent element? Evidently in the blow-pocket itself. It is here
that the intestine ends and here that albuminous products, furnished
either by the digestive canal or by special glands, can be expelled in
infinitesimal doses. Each whiff sent out is thus accompanied by a
trifle of adhesive matter, which dissolves in the water, making it
sticky and enabling it to retain the captive air in permanent bubbles.
The Cicadella covers herself with an icing of which her intestine is to
some extent the manufacturer.
This method brings us back to the industry of the lily-dweller, the
grub which makes itself a loathsome armour out of its excretions; [86]
but what a distance between the heap of ordure which it wears on its
back and the Cicadella’s aerated mattress!
Another fact, more difficult to explain, attracts our attention. A
multitude of low-growing, herbaceous plants, whose sap starts flowing
in April, suit the frothy insect, without distinction of species, genus
or family. I could almost make a list of the non-ligneous vegetation of
my neighbourhood by cataloguing the plants on which the little
creature’s foam is to be found in greater or lesser abundance. A few
experiments will tell us how indifferent the Cicadella is to both the
nature and the properties of the plant which she adopts as her home.
I pick the insect out of its froth with the tip of a hair-pencil and
place it on some other plant, of an opposite flavour, letting the
strong come after the mild, the spicy after the insipid, the bitter
after the sweet. The new encampment is accepted without hesitation and
soon covered with foam. For instance, a Cicadella taken from the bean,
which has a neutral flavour, thrives excellently on the spurges, full
of pungent milky sap, and particularly on Euphorbia serrata, the narrow
notch-leaved spurge, which is one of her favourite dwelling-places. And
she is equally satisfied when moved from the highly-spiced spurge to
the comparatively flavourless bean.
This indifference is surprising when we reflect how scrupulously
faithful other insects are to their plants. There are undoubtedly
stomachs expressly made to drink corrosive and assimilate toxic
matters. The caterpillar of Acherontia atropos, the Death’s-head
Hawk-moth, eats its fill of potato-leaves, which are seasoned with
solanin; the caterpillar of the Spurge-moth browses in these parts on
the upright red spurge (Euphorbia characias), whose milk produces much
the same effect as red-hot iron on the tongue; but neither one nor the
other would pass from these narcotics or these caustics to utterly
insipid fare.
How does the Cicadella manage to feed on anything and everything, for
she evidently obtains nourishment while putting a head on her liquid? I
see her thrive, either of her own accord or by my devices, on the
common buttercup (Ranunculus acris), which has a flavour unequalled
save by Cayenne pepper; on the Italian arum (Arum italicum), the
veriest particle of whose leaves is enough to burn the lips; on the
traveller’s joy, or virgin’s bower (Clematis vitalba), the famous
beggars’ herb, which reddens the skin and produces the sores in request
among our sham cripples. After these highly-seasoned condiments, she
will promptly accept the mild sainfoin, the scented savory, the bitter
dandelion, the sweet field eringo, in short, anything that I put before
her, whether full-flavoured or tasteless.
As a matter of fact, this strange catholicity of diet might well be
only apparent. When the Cicadella punctures this or that herb, of
whatever species, all that she does is to extract an almost neutral
liquid, just as the roots draw it from the soil; she does not admit to
her fountain the fluids worked up into essential principles. The liquid
that trickles forth under the insect’s gimlet and forms a bead at the
bottom of the foamy mass is perfectly clear.
I have gathered this drop on the spurge, the arum, the clematis and the
buttercup. I expected to find a fire-water, pungent as the sap of those
different plants. Well, it is nothing of the kind; it lacks all savour;
it is water or little more. And this insipid stuff has issued from a
reservoir of vitriol.
If I prick the spurge with a fine needle, that which rises from the
puncture is a white, milky drop, tasting horribly bitter. When the
Cicadella pushes in her drill, a clear, flavourless fluid oozes out.
The two operations seem to be directed towards different sources.
How does she manage to draw a liquid that is clear and harmless from
the same barrel whence my needle brings up something milky and burning?
Can the Cicadella, with her instrument, that incomparable alembic,
divide the fierce fluid into two, admitting the neutral and rejecting
the peppery? Can she be drawing on certain vessels whose sap, not yet
elaborated, has not acquired its final virulence? The delicate
vegetable anatomy is helpless in the presence of the tiny creature’s
pump. I give up the problem.
When the Cicadella is exploring the spurge, as frequently happens, she
has a serious reason for not admitting to her fountain all that would
be yielded by simple bleeding, such as my needle would produce. The
milky juice of the plant would be fatal to her.
I gather a drop or two of the liquid that trickles from a cut stalk and
instal a Cicadella in it. The insect is not comfortable: I can see this
by its efforts to escape. My hair-pencil pushes the fugitive back into
the pool of milk, rich in dissolved rubber. Soon this rubber settles
into clots similar to crumbs of cheese; the insect’s legs become clad
in gaiters that seem made of casein; a coating of gum obstructs the
breathing-valves; possibly also the extremely delicate skin is hurt by
the blistering qualities of the milky sap. If kept for some time in
that environment, the Cicadella dies.
Even so would she die if her gimlet, working simply as a needle,
brought the milk of the spurge to the surface. A sifting takes place
then, which allows almost pure water to issue from the source that
gives the wherewithal for making the froth. A subtle
exhaustion-process, whose mechanism is hidden from our curiosity, a
piston-play of unrivalled delicacy, effects this marvellous work of
purification.
Water is always water, whether it come from the stagnant pool or the
clear stream, from a poisonous liquid or a healing infusion; and it
possesses the same properties, when it is rid of its impurities by
distillation. In like manner, the sap, whether furnished by the spurge
or the bean, the clematis or the sainfoin, the buttercup or the borage,
is of the same watery nature when the Cicadella’s syphon, by a
reducing-process which would be the envy of our stills, has deprived it
of its peculiar properties, which vary so greatly in different plants.
This would explain how the insect makes its froth rise on the first
plant that it comes across. Everything suits it, because its apparatus
reduces any sap to the condition of plain water. The inimitable
well-sinker is able to produce the limpid from the cloudy and the
harmless from the toxic.
It may possibly happen that the insect’s well supplies water that is
not quite pure. If left to evaporate in a watch-glass, the clear drop
that trickles from the mass of foam yields a thin white residue, which
dissolves by effervescence in nitric acid. This residue might well be
carbonate of potash. I also suspect the presence of traces of albumen.
Obviously, the Cicadella finds something to feed on at the bottom of
the puncture. Now what does she consume? To all appearances, something
with an albuminous basis, for the pigmy herself is, for the most part,
but a grain of similar matter. This element is plentiful in all plants;
and it is probable that the insect uses it lavishly to make up for the
expenditure of gum needed for the formation of froth. Some albuminous
product, perfected in the digestive canal and discharged by the
intestine as and when the blow-pocket expels its bubble of air, might
well give the liquid the power of swelling into a foam that lasts for a
long time.
If we ask ourselves what advantage the Cicadella derives from her mass
of froth, a very excellent answer is at once suggested: the insect
keeps itself cool under that shelter, hides itself from the eyes of its
persecutors and is protected against the rays of the sun and the
attacks of parasites.
The Lily-beetle makes a similar use of the mantle of her own dirt; but
she, most unhappily for herself, flings off her nasty cloak and
descends naked from the plant to the ground, where she has to bury
herself to slaver her cocoon. At this critical moment, the Flies lie in
wait for her and entrust her with their eggs, the germs of parasites
which will eat into her body.
The Cicadella is better-advised and altogether escapes the dangers
attendant on a removal. Subject to certain summary changes which never
interrupt her activity, she assumes the adult form in the very heart of
her bastion, under the shelter of a viscous rampart capable of
repelling any assailant. Here she enjoys perfect security when the
difficult hour has come for tearing off her old skin and putting on
another, brand-new and more decorative; here she finds profound peace
for her excoriation and for the display of the attire of a riper age.
The insect does not leave its cool covering until it is grown up, when
it appears in the form of a pretty little, brown-striped Cicadella. It
is then able to take enormous and sudden leaps, which carry it far from
the aggressor; and it leads an easy life, untroubled by the foe.
Looked upon as a system of defence, the frothy stronghold is indeed a
magnificent invention, much superior to the squalid work of the invader
of the lily. And, strange to say, the system has no imitators among the
genera most nearly allied to the froth-blower.
In her larval form, the Asparagus-beetle is victimized by the Fly
because she does not follow the example of her cousin, the Lily-beetle,
and clothe herself in her own droppings. Even so, on the grass, on the
trees displaying their tender leaves, other Cicadellæ abound, no less
exposed to danger from the Warbler seeking a succulent morsel for his
little ones; and, as they draw out the sap through the punctures made
by their suckers, not one of them thinks of making it effervesce. Yet
they too possess the elevator-pump, which they all work in the same
manner; only they do not know how to turn the end of their intestine
into a bellows. Why not? Because instincts are not to be acquired. They
are primordial aptitudes, bestowed here and denied there; time cannot
awaken them by a slow incubation, nor are they decreed by any
similarity of organization.
NOTES
[1] You used to sing! I’m glad to know it.
Well, try dancing for a change!
[2] Jean de La Fontaine (1621–1695), the author of the world-famous
Fables.—Translator’s Note.
[3] Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard (1803–1847), better known by his
pseudonym of Grandville, a famous French caricaturist and illustrator
of La Fontaine’s Fables, Béranger’s Chansons and the standard French
editions of Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver’s Travels.—Translator’s Note.
[4] Sir Roger L’Estrange attributes the fable to Anianus and, as is
usual in the English version, substitutes the Grasshopper for the
Cicada. It may be interesting to quote his translation:
“As the Ants were airing their provisions one winter, up comes a hungry
Grasshopper to ’em and begs a charity. They told him that he should
have wrought in summer, if he would not have wanted in winter. ‘Well,’
says the Grasshopper, ‘but I was not idle neither; for I sung out the
whole season.’ ‘Nay then,’ said they, ‘you shall e’en do well to make a
merry year on’t and dance in winter to the tune that you sung in
summer.’”—Translator’s Note.
[5] Cf. The Hunting Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. iv. to x.—Translator’s Note.
[6] For the Pompilus-wasp, or Ringed Calicurgus, cf. The Life and Love
of the Insect, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de
Mattos: chap. xii.—Translator’s Note.
[7] For the grub of the Rose-chafer, or Cetonia, cf. The Life and Love
of the Insect: chap. xi.—Translator’s Note.
[8] Pierre Jean de Béranger (1780–1857), the popular French lyric
poet.—Translator’s Note.
[9] René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur (1683–1757), inventor of the
Réaumur thermometer and author of Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire
naturelle des insectes.—Translator’s Note.
[10] Cf. The Life and Love of the Insect: chap. ix.—Translator’s Note.
[11] The Capricorn, or Cerambyx-beetle, lives in oak-trees; the
Buprestis-beetles are found mostly in felled timber.—Translator’s Note.
[12] Joseph Jacotot (1770–1840), a famous French educator, whose
methods aroused a great deal of discussion. He propounded other more or
less paradoxical maxims, such as, “All men have an equal intelligence,”
“A man can teach what he does not know,” and so on.—Translator’s Note.
[13] Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1500–1577), known as Matthiolus, a
physician and naturalist who practised at Siena and Rome. His
Commentaries on Dioscorides were published in Italian, at Venice, in
1544 and in Latin in 1554.—Translator’s Note.
[14] Guillaume Rondelet (1507–1566), a physician and naturalist, author
of various works on medicine and of an Universa piscium historia
(Lyons, 1554) which earned him the title of father of ichthyology.
Rabelais introduces him into his Pantagruel by the name of
Rondibilis.—Translator’s Note.
[15] “Cicadæ eaten roasted are good for pains in the bladder.”
[16] Guillaume Antoine Olivier (1756–1814), a distinguished French
entomologist, author of an Histoire naturelle des coléoptères, in six
volumes (1789–1808), and part author of the nine volumes devoted to a
Dictionnaire de l’histoire naturelle des insectes in the Encyclopédie
méthodique (1789–1819).—Translator’s Note.
[17] I have gathered the Cicada’s eggs on Spartium junceum, or Spanish
broom; on asphodel (Asphodelus cerasiferus); on Toad-flax (Linaria
striata); on Calamintha nepeta, or lesser calamint; on Hirschfeldia
adpressa; on Chondrilla juncea, or common gum-succory; on garlic
(Allium polyanthum); on Asteriscus spinosus and other plants.—Author’s
Note.
[18] Calamintha nepeta, Hirschfeldia adpressa.—Author’s Note.
[19] 10.9 inches.—Translator’s Note.
[20] 11.7 inches.—Translator’s Note.
[21] 4.6 inches.—Translator’s Note.
[22] .31 to .39 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[23] .156 to .195 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[24] Cf. The Mason-bees, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xi.—Translator’s Note.
[25] About 1⁄10 × 1⁄50 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[26] Cf. The Life of the Fly, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chaps, ii, iii and v.—Translator’s Note.
[27] Cf. The Life of the Fly: chap. iv.—Translator’s Note.
[28] Cf. Bramble-bees and Others, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: passim.—Translator’s Note.
[29] The Decticus, Tryxalis and Ephippiger are all species of
Grasshoppers or Locusts.—Translator’s Note.
[30] Epeira sericea and E. diadema are two Garden Spiders for whom cf.
The Life of the Spider, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander
Teixeira de Mattos: chaps. ix to xiv.—Translator’s Note.
[31] Cf. The Life of the Spider: chap. viii.—Translator’s Note.
[32] Cf. The Hunting Wasps: passim.—Translator’s Note.
[33] 1.56 in. × .78 in.—Translator’s Note.
[34] Benjamin Thompson (1753–1814), an American loyalist, created Count
Rumford in Bavaria, where he became minister for war. He discovered the
convertibility of mechanical energy into heat.—Translator’s Note.
[35] Thomas Moffett, Moufet, or Muffet (1553–1604), author of a
posthumous Insectorum sive Minimorum Animalium Teatrum, published in
Latin in 1634 and in an English translation, by Edward Topsell, in
1658. Although giving credence to too many fabulous reports, Moffett
was acknowledged the prince of entomologists prior to the advent of Jan
Swammerdam (1637–1680).—Translator’s Note.
[36] Jacques Callot (1592–1635), the French engraver and painter, famed
for the grotesque nature of his subjects.—Translator’s Note.
[37] Cf. The Hunting Wasps: chap. xiii.—Translator’s Note.
[38] Cotton-bees. Cf. Bramble-bees and Others: chap. ix.—Translator’s
Note.
[39] A genus of Mason-wasps, the essay on whom has not yet been
translated into English.—Translator’s Note.
[40] A species of Burrowing Bees.—Translator’s Note.
[41] Œdipoda cærulescens, Lin.; Œ. miniata, Pallas; Sphingonotus
cærulans, Lin.; Caloptenus italicus, Lin.; Pachytylus nigrofasciatus,
de Geer; Truxalis nasuta, Lin.—Author’s Note.
[42] Conocephalus mandibularis, Charp.; Platycleis intermedia, Serv.;
Ephippigea vitium, Serv.—Author’s Note.
[43] Cf. The Life of the Spider and The Hunting Wasps:
passim.—Translator’s Note.
[44] An orthopterous family which includes the Grasshoppers, but not
the Locusts. The latter are Acridians.—Translator’s Note.
[45] The class of molluscs containing the Squids, Cuttlefish, Octopus,
etc.—Translator’s Note.
[46] A genus of Myriapods including the typical
Centipedes.—Translator’s Note.
[47] Cf. Chapter XIV. of the present volume.—Translator’s Note.
[48] The highest mountain (6,270 feet) in the neighbourhood of
Sérignan. Cf. The Hunting Wasps: chap. xi.—Translator’s Note.
[49] M. Bellot, forest-ranger of Beaumont (Vaucluse).—Author’s Note.
[50] .195 to .234 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[51] .039 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[52] This essay was written prior to that on the Grey Flesh-flies, who
employ a similar method. Cf. The Life of the Fly: chap. x.—Translator’s
Note.
[53] “Beneath the shade which beechen boughs diffuse,
You, Tityrus, entertain your sylvan muse.
. . . . . . .
These blessings friend, a deity bestowed:
. . . . . . .
He gave my kine to graze the flowery plain
And to my pipe renewed the rural strain.”
—Pastorals: book i.; Dryden’s translation.
[54] Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon (1707–1788), the foremost French
naturalist and one of the foremost French writers, though his style, as
Fabre rightly suggests, was nothing less than pompous. He was the
originator, in the speech delivered at his reception into the French
academy, of the famous aphorism, “Le style est l’homme
même.”—Translator’s Note.
[55] Cf. Social Life in the Insect World, by J. H. Fabre, translated by
Bernard Miall: chap. xxi.—Translator’s Note.
[56] A Dung-beetle. Cf. The Life and Love of the Insect: chap.
v.—Translator’s Note.
[57] Cf. The Life of the Caterpillar, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xiii.—Translator’s Note.
[58] The 14th of July, the anniversary of the fall of the
Bastille.—Translator’s Note.
[59] The order of insects comprising the Grasshoppers, Locusts,
Crickets, Cockroaches, Mantes and Earwigs. The Cicada, with whom the
present volume opens, and the Foamy Cicadella, with whom it closes,
belong to the order of Homoptera.—Translator’s Note.
[60] The author was obviously thinking of the Englishman’s saddle of
mutton and red-currant jelly. The mistake has been repeated much nearer
to these shores. I have in mind the true story of an Irish king’s
counsel singing the praises of another, still among us, who had married
an English wife and who, in the course of an extensive practice in the
House of Lords, spent much of his time in England:
“Ah, —— —— is a real gentleman! He speaks with an English accent,
quotes Euripides in the original Latin and takes jam with his meat.”
I venture to think that Fabre, in the gentleness of his heart, would
have forgiven his translator for quoting this flippant anecdote. I have
no other excuse.—Translator’s Note.
[61] .117 to .156 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[62] Fuller details on this curious subject would be out of place in a
book in which anatomy and physiology cannot always speak quite freely.
They will be found in my essay on the Locustidæ which appeared in the
Annales des sciences naturelles, 1896.—Author’s Note.
[63] “Fare thee well, good neighbour Cricket; from thy presence I
must flee;
Mine ears also will be taken for a pair of horns,” said he.
“Horns, i’ faith!” the Cricket answered. “Is thy servant mad
or blind?
Those are ears which thy Creator with His own hand hath
designed!”
“Yet the world will one day call them horns,” his fellow made
reply,
“And ere that day dawn, my neighbour, I will bid this place
good-bye.”
[64] Jean Pierre Claris de Florian (1755–1794), Voltaire’s
grand-nephew, the leading French fabulist, after La
Fontaine.—Translator’s Note.
[65] “My snug little home is a place of delight:
If you want to live happy, live hidden from sight!”
[66] My friend, who is always accurate in his descriptions, is here
speaking, if I be not mistaken, of the Swallow-tail.—Author’s Note.
[67] For the translation of these and the other verses in this chapter
I am indebted to my friend Mr. Stephen McKenna.—Translator’s Note.
[68] For the author’s only essay on Ants, cf. The Mason-bees: chap.
vi.—Translator’s Note.
[69] Or Burying-beetle.—Translator’s Note.
[70] Cf. The Hunting Wasps: chaps. iv to vii.—Translator’s Note.
[71] “Then tripping to the woods the wanton hies
And wishes to be seen before she flies.”
—Virgil, Pastorals: book i.; Dryden’s translation.
[72] “Safe under covert of the silent night
And guided by the imperial galley’s light.”
—Virgil, Æneid: book ii.; Dryden’s translation.
[73] The enclosed piece of waste land, adjoining his house at Sérignan,
in which the author used to study his insects in their natural state.
Cf. The Life of the Fly: chap. i.—Translator’s Note.
[74] Alphonse Tousserel (1803–1885), author of a number of interesting
and valuable works on ornithology.—Translator’s Note.
[75] Also known as the Stone-chat, Fallow-chat, Whin-chat, Fallow-finch
and White-tail, which last corresponds with the Cul-blanc of the
Provençal dialect. The French name for this Saxicola is the Motteux, or
Clod-hopper.—Translator’s Note.
[76] Wormlike Millepedes.—Translator’s Note.
[77] General Eugène Daumas (1803–1871), the author of several works on
Algeria.—Translator’s Note.
[78] More correctly the Locust, not to be confused with the true
Grasshopper, who carries a sabre.—Author’s Note.
[79] The Blessed Virgin Mary.—Author’s Note.
[80] Omar, the second caliph and the first to assume the title of
Commander of the Faithful, reigned from 634 to his death in 644. The
Alexandrian library was burnt in 640.—Translator’s Note.
[81] Cf. The Mason-bees: passim.—Translator’s Note.
[82] 2.34 by .312 inches.—Translator’s Note.
[83] The big Grey Locust is sometimes subject to the same
aberration.—Author’s Note.
[84] .312 to .351 inch.—Translator’s Note.
[85] Kirby and other English naturalists refer to Aphrophora spumaria
as the Frothy Froghopper; but this is rather because the insect’s
outline and hopping-powers suggest those of a Frog.—Translator’s Note.
[86] The larva of the Lily-beetle (Crioceris merdigera), the essay on
which insect has not yet been translated into English.—Translator’s
Note.