CHAPTER VII

THE LANGUEDOCIAN SCORPION: THE FAMILY

Book-knowledge is a poor resource in the problems of life; assiduous

study with the facts is preferable in this connection to the best

stocked library. In many cases, ignorance is a good thing: the mind

retains its freedom of investigation and does not stray along the roads

leading nowhither, suggested by one’s reading. I have proved the truth

of this once more.

An anatomical monograph had told me that the Languedocian Scorpion is

big with young in September. Although it was written by a master’s

hand, how much better should I have done not to consult it! The family

sees the light of day long before this season, at least in my climate;

and, as the rearing lasts but a short time, I should have seen nothing

had I delayed until September. A third year of observation, tiresome to

wait for, would have become necessary, in order at last to witness a

sight which I foresaw to be of the highest interest. But for

exceptional circumstances, I should have allowed the fleeting

opportunity to pass, and should have lost a year and perhaps even

abandoned the subject.

Yes, ignorance may have its advantages; the new is found far from the

beaten track. One of our most illustrious masters, little suspecting

the lesson he was giving me, taught me that some time ago. One fine

day, Pasteur [46] rang unexpectedly at my front-door: the very same man

who was soon to acquire such world-wide celebrity. His name was

familiar to me. I had read the scholar’s fine work on the dissymmetry

of tartaric acid; I had followed with the greatest interest his

researches on the theory of spontaneous generation.

Each period has its scientific crotchet: to-day, it is evolution; in

those days, it was spontaneous generation. With his glass bulbs made

sterile or fertile at will, with his experiments which were magnificent

in their severity and simplicity, Pasteur gave the death-blow to the

lunacy which professed to see life springing from a chemical conflict

in the seat of putrefaction.

At this time, the dispute, which was to be so triumphantly elucidated,

was at its height. I welcomed my distinguished visitor to the best of

my ability. The scientist had come to me before all others for certain

particulars. I owed this signal honour to my quality of fellow

physicist and chemist. Such a poor, obscure, fellow scientist!

Pasteur’s tour through the Avignon region had sericiculture for its

object. For some years, the Silk-worm-nurseries had been in confusion,

ravaged by unknown plagues. The worms, for no appreciable reason, were

falling into a putrid deliquescence, and then hardening, so to speak,

into plaster sugar-plums. The downcast peasant saw one of his chief

crops disappearing; after great trouble and expense, he had to fling

his nurseries on the dust-heap.

A few words were exchanged on the prevailing blight; and then, without

further preamble, my visitor said:

“I should like to see some cocoons. I have never seen any; I know them

only by name. Could you get me some?”

“Nothing easier. My landlord happens to sell cocoons; and he lives in

the next house. If you will wait a moment, I will bring you what you

want.”

Four steps took me to my neighbour’s, where I crammed my pockets with

cocoons. I came back and handed them to the savant. He took one; he

turned and turned it between his fingers; he examined it curiously, as

one would a strange object from the other end of the world. He put it

to his ear and shook it.

“Why, it makes a noise!” he said, quite surprised. “There’s something

inside!”

“Of course there is.”

“What is it?”

“The chrysalis.”

“How do you mean, the chrysalis?”

“I mean the sort of mummy into which the caterpillar changes before

becoming a Moth.”

“And has every cocoon one of those things inside it?”

“Obviously. It is to protect the chrysalis that the caterpillar spins.”

“Really!”

And without more words, the cocoons passed into the pocket of the

savant, who was to instruct himself at his leisure touching that great

novelty, the chrysalis. I was struck by this magnificent assurance.

Pasteur had come to regenerate the Silkworm, while knowing nothing

about caterpillars, cocoons, chrysalids or metamorphoses. The ancient

gymnasts came naked to the fight. The talented combatant of the plague

of our Silk-worm-nurseries hastened to the battle likewise naked, that

is to say, destitute of the simplest notions about the insect which he

was to deliver from danger. I was staggered; nay, more, I was

thunderstruck.

I was not so much amazed by what followed. Pasteur was occupied at the

time with another question, that of the improvement of wine by heating.

Suddenly changing the conversation,

“Show me your cellar,” he said.

I! I show my cellar, my private cellar, poor I, lately, with my pitiful

teacher’s salary, could not allow myself the luxury of a little wine

and used to make a sort of small cider by setting a handful of brown

sugar and some grated apples to ferment in a jar! My cellar! Show my

cellar! Why not my barrels, my cobwebbed bottles, each labelled with

its year and quality! My cellar!

Full of confusion, I evaded the request and tried to change the

subject. But he persisted:

“Show me your cellar, please.”

There was no resisting such firmness. I pointed with my finger to a

corner in the kitchen, where stood a chair with no seat to it and, on

that chair, a demijohn containing two or three gallons.

“That’s my cellar, sir.”

“Is that your cellar?”

“I have no other.”

“Is that all?”

“Yes, that’s all, I’m sorry to say.”

“Really!”

Not a word more; nothing further from the savant. Pasteur, it was

evident, had never tasted the highly-spiced dish which the vulgar call

la vache enragée. Though my cellar—the dilapidated chair and the more

than half-empty demijohn—had nothing to tell of the fermentation to be

checked by heat, it spoke eloquently of another thing which my

illustrious visitor seemed not to understand. There was one microbe

that escaped his notice, and a very terrible microbe: that of

ill-fortune strangling good-will.

In spite of the unlucky introduction of the cellar, I am none the less

struck by his serene assurance. He knows nothing of the transformation

of insects; he has just seen a cocoon for the first time and learnt

that there is something inside that cocoon, the rough draft of the moth

that will be; he is ignorant of what is known to the meanest schoolboy

of our southern province; and this novice, whose artless questions

surprise me so greatly, is about to revolutionize the hygiene of the

Silk-worm nurseries. In the same way, he will revolutionize medicine

and general hygiene.

His weapon is theory, heedless of details, and taking a bird’s-eye view

of the whole question. What cares he for metamorphoses, larvæ, nymphs,

cocoons, pupæ, chrysalids and the thousand and one little secrets of

entomology! For the purposes of his problem, perhaps, it is just as

well to be ignorant of all that. His theories will retain their

independence and their daring flight all the more easily; their

movements will be all the freer, when released from the leading-strings

of the known.

Encouraged by the magnificent example of the cocoons rattling in

Pasteur’s astonished ears, I have made it a rule to adopt the method of

ignorance in my investigations of the instincts. I read very little.

Instead of turning the pages of books, an expensive proceeding quite

beyond my means, instead of consulting other people, I persist in

obstinately interviewing my subject until I succeed in making him

speak. I know nothing. So much the better: my queries will be all the

freer, now in this direction, now in the opposite, according to the

glimpses of light obtained. And if, by chance, I do open a book, I take

care to leave a compartment of my mind wide open to doubt; for the soil

which I am clearing bristles with weeds and brambles.

For lack of taking this precaution, I very nearly wasted a year.

Relying on what I had read, I did not look for the family of the

Languedocian Scorpion until September; and I obtained it quite

unexpectedly in July. The difference between the real and the

anticipated date I ascribe to the disparity of the climates: my

observations were all made in Provence and my informant, Léon Dufour,

[47] made his in Spain. Notwithstanding the master’s high authority, I

ought to have been on my guard. I was not; and I should have lost the

opportunity if, as luck would have it, the Common Black Scorpion had

not taught me. Ah, how right was Pasteur not to know the chrysalis!

The Common Scorpion, smaller and much less active than the other, was

reared, for purposes of comparison, in some humble glass jam-pots

standing on the table in my study. These unassuming receptacles did not

take up much room and were easy to examine and I made a point of

visiting them daily. Every morning, before sitting down to blacken a

few pages of my diary with prose, I invariably lifted the piece of

cardboard which I employed to shelter my boarders and enquired into the

happenings of the night. These daily inspections were not so feasible

in the large glass cage, whose numerous dwellings would all be thrown

into confusion, if they were to be examined one by one and then

methodically set in order as discovered. With my pots of Black

Scorpions, the inspection was the matter of a moment.

It was well for me that I always had this auxiliary establishment

before my eyes. On the 22nd of July, at six o’clock in the morning,

raising the cardboard screen, I found a mother beneath it, with her

little ones clustering on her back like a sort of white cloak. I

experienced one of those moments of sweet contentment which, at

intervals, reward the long-suffering observer. For the first time I had

before my eyes the fine spectacle of the Scorpioness clad in her young.

The delivery was quite recent: it must have taken place during the

night, for, on the previous evening, the mother was naked.

Further successes awaited me: on the next day, a second mother is

whitened with her brood: the day after that, two others at a time are

in the same condition. That makes four. It is more than my ambition

hoped for. With four families of Scorpions and a few quiet days before

me, we may find some pleasure in life.

All the more so as fortune loads me with her favours. Ever since the

first discovery in the jars, I have been thinking of the glass jars and

asking myself whether the Languedocian Scorpion might not be as forward

as her black sister. Let us make haste and see.

I turn over the twenty-five tiles. A glorious success! I feel one of

those hot waves of enthusiasm with which I was familiar at the age of

twenty rush through my old veins. Under three out of the total number

of tiles, I find a mother laden with her family. One has young that are

already quite of a fair size, about a week old, as my subsequent

observations informed me; the two others have borne their children

recently, during the recent night, as is proved by certain remnants

jealously guarded under the paunch. We shall see presently what these

remnants represent.

July runs to an end, August and September pass and nothing more occurs

to swell my collection. The period of the family, therefore, for both

Scorpions is the second fortnight in July. From that time onwards

everything is finished. And yet, among my guests in the black cage,

there are still some females as big and fat as those from whom I have

obtained progeny. I reckoned on these too for an increase in the

population; all the appearances authorized me to do so. Winter comes

and none of them has answered my expectations. The business, which

seemed close at hand, has been put off to next year: a fresh proof of

long gestation, very singular in the case of an animal of a lower

order.

I transfer each mother and her product, separately, into medium-sized

receptacles, which facilitate conscientious observation. At the early

hour of my visit, those brought to bed during the night have still a

part of the brood sheltered under their bellies. Pushing the mother

aside with a straw, I discover, amid the heap of young not yet hoisted

on the maternal back, objects that utterly upset all that the books

have taught me on this subject. The Scorpions, they say are viviparous.

The scientific expression lacks exactitude: the young do not first see

the light in the shape with which we are familiar.

And this must be so. How would you have the outstretched claws, the

sprawling legs, the curled-up tails make their way through the maternal

passages? The cumberous little animal could never pass through the

narrow outlets. It must needs enter the world packed up and sparing of

space.

The remnants found under the mothers, in fact, show me eggs, real eggs,

similar, or very nearly, to those which dissection extracts from the

ovaries at an advanced stage of pregnancy. The little animal,

economically compressed to the dimensions of a grain of rice, has its

tail laid along its belly, its claws flattened against its chest, its

legs pressed to its sides, so that the small easily gliding oval mass

presents not the slightest protuberance. On the forehead, dots of an

intense black mark the eyes. The tiny insect floats in a drop of

transparent moisture, which is for the moment its world, its

atmosphere, contained by a pellicle of exquisite delicacy.

These objects are really eggs. There were thirty or forty of them, at

first, in the Languedocian Scorpion’s litter; not quite so many in the

Black Scorpion’s. Intervening too late in the nocturnal confinement, I

am present at the finish. The little that remains, however, is

sufficient to convince me. The Scorpion is in reality oviparous; only,

her eggs hatch very speedily and the liberation of the young follows

very soon after the laying.

Now how does this liberation take place? I enjoy the remarkable

privilege of witnessing it. I see the mother with the points of her

mandibles delicately seizing, tearing, peeling off and lastly

swallowing the membrane of the egg. She strips her new-born offspring

with the fastidious care and fondness of the Sheep and the Cat eating

the fœtal wrappers. Not a scratch on that scarce-formed flesh, not a

limb strained, in spite of the clumsiness of the tool employed.

I cannot get over my surprise: the Scorpion has initiated the race into

processes of maternity bordering on our own. In the distant days of the

carboniferous periods, when the first Scorpion appeared, the tender

cases of child-birth were already preparing. The egg, the equivalent of

the long-sleeping seed, the egg, as already possessed by the reptile

and the fish and later to be possessed by the bird and almost the whole

body of insects, was the contemporary of an infinitely more delicate

organism which ushered in the viviparousness of the higher animals. The

incubation of the germ did not take place outside, amidst the

threatening conflict of things; it was accomplished in the mother’s

womb.

The progressive movements of life know no gradual stages, from fair to

good, from good to excellent; they proceed by leaps and bounds, in some

cases advancing, in some recoiling. The ocean has its rythmical ebb and

flow. Life, that other ocean, more unfathomable than the watery ocean,

has its ebb and flow likewise. Will it have any other tides? Who can

say it will? Who can say that it will not?

If the Sheep did not assist by swallowing the membranous envelopes

after picking them up with her lips, never would the Lamb succeed in

extricating itself from its swaddling-clothes. In the same way, the

little Scorpion calls for its mother’s aid. I see some that, caught in

stickiness, writhe aimlessly in the half-torn ovarian sac, unable to

free themselves. It wants a touch of the mother’s teeth to complete the

deliverance. It is doubtful even whether the young insect contributes

to effect the laceration. Its weakness is of no avail against that

other weakness, the natal envelope, though this be as slender as the

inner lining of an onion-skin.

The young Chick has a temporary callosity at the end of its beak, which

serves it as a pick-axe to break the shell. The young Scorpion,

condensed, to economise space, to the dimensions of a grain of rice,

waits inertly for help from without. The mother has to do everything.

She works with such a will that the accessories of childbirth disappear

altogether, even the few sterile eggs being swept away with the others

in the general flow. Not a remnant of the now useless tatters;

everything has returned to the mother’s stomach; and the spot of ground

that received the litter is swept absolutely clear.

So here we have the young scrupulously cleaned and free. They are

white. Their length from head to tail, measures nine millimetres [48]

in the Languedocian Scorpion and four [49] in the Black. As the

liberating toilet is completed, they climb, first one and then the

other, on the mother’s back, hoisting themselves, without excessive

haste, along the claws, which the Scorpion holds flat on the ground, in

order to facilitate the ascent. Close packed one against the other,

entangled at random, they form a continuous sheet upon her back. With

the aid of their little claws, they settle themselves pretty firmly. I

find some difficulty in sweeping them away with the point of a

camel-hair pencil without more or less hurting the feeble creatures. At

this stage neither steed nor burden budges: it is the fit moment for

experiment. Clad in her offspring assembled to form a mantle of white

muslin, the Scorpion is a spectacle worthy of attention. She remains

motionless, with her tail curled on high. If I threaten the family too

closely with a straw, she at once lifts her two claws in an angry

attitude, rarely adopted in her own defence. The two fists are raised

as if for sparring, the nippers wide open, ready to thrust and parry.

The tail is seldom brandished: to loosen it suddenly would give a shock

to the spine and perhaps make a part of the load fall to the ground.

The bold, sudden, imposing menace of the fists suffices.

My curiosity takes no notice of it. I push off one of the little ones

and place it facing its mother, a finger’s breadth distant. The mother

does not seem to trouble about the accident: motionless she was,

motionless she remains. Why perturb herself about a tumble? The fallen

child will be quite able to manage for itself. It gesticulates, it

moves about: and then, finding one of the mother’s claws within its

reach, it clambers up nimbly enough and joins the crowd of its

brothers. It resumes its seat in the saddle, but is far from displaying

the agility of the Lycosa’s sons, who are expert riders, versed in the

art of vaulting on horseback.

The experiment is repeated on a larger scale. This time, I sweep a part

of the load to the ground; the little ones are scattered to no very

great distance. There is a somewhat lengthy, hesitating pause. While

the brats wander about, without quite knowing where to go, the mother

at last becomes at the state of affairs. With her two arms—I am

speaking of the pedipalpi that carry the pincers—with her two arms

joined in a semicircle, she rakes and gathers the sand so as to bring

the truants towards her. This is done awkwardly, clumsily, with no

precautions against accidental crushing. The Hen, with a soft, clucking

call, makes the wandering Chicks return to the pale; the Scorpion

collects her family with the sweep of the rake. All are safe and sound

nevertheless. As soon as they come in contact with the mother, they

climb up and form themselves again into the dorsal group.

Strangers are admitted to this group as well as the legitimate

offspring. If, with the camel-hair broom, I dislodge a matron’s family,

wholly or in part, and place it within reach of a second mother, laden

with her own family, the latter will collect the young ones by armfuls,

as she would her own offspring, and meekly allow the newcomers to mount

upon her back. One would say that she adopts them, were the expression

not too ambitious. There is no adoption. We have once more the

blindness of the Lycosa, who is incapable of distinguishing between her

own and another’s progeny, and welcomes all that swarms about her legs.

I expected to come upon excursions similar to those of the Lycosa, whom

it is not unusual to meet scouring the heath with her pack of children

on her back. The Scorpion knows nothing of these diversions. Once she

becomes a mother, for sometime she does not leave her home, not even in

the evening, at the hour when others sally forth to frolic. Barricaded

in her cell, not troubling to eat, she watches over the upbringing of

her young.

As a matter of fact, these frail creatures have a ticklish ordeal to

undergo: they have, one might say, to be born a second time. They

prepare for it by immobility and by an inward labour not unlike that

which turns the larva into the perfect insect. In spite of their fairly

correct appearance as Scorpions, the young ones have rather indistinct

features, which look as though seen through a mist. One is inclined to

credit them with a sort of child’s smock, which they must throw off in

order to grow slender and acquire a definite outline.

A week spent without moving, on the mother’s back, is required for this

work. Then there takes place an excoriation which I hesitate to

describe by the expression moult, so greatly does it differ from the

true moult, undergone later at repeated intervals. For the latter, the

skin splits over the thorax; and the animal emerges through this single

fissure, leaving a dry, cast-off garment behind it, similar in shape to

the Scorpion that has just discarded it. The empty mould retains the

exact outline of the moulded animal.

But, this time, we have something different. I place a few young ones

in the act of shedding their skin on a sheet of glass. They are

motionless, sorely tried, it seems, almost spent. The skin bursts,

without special lines of cleavage; it tears at one and the same time in

front, behind, at the sides; the legs come out of their gaiters, the

claws leave their gauntlets, the tail quits its scabbard. The cast skin

falls in rags on all sides at once. It is a peeling without order and

in tatters. When it is done, the stripped insects present the normal

appearance of Scorpions. They have also acquired agility. Although

still pale in tint, they are nimble, quick to set foot to earth in

order to run and play beside their mother. The most striking part of

this progress is the rapid growth. The young of the Languedocian

Scorpion measured nine millimetres in length; they now measure

fourteen. [50] Those of the Black Scorpion have grown from four to six

or seven millimetres. [51] The length increases by one half, which

nearly trebles the volume.

Surprised by this sudden growth, we wonder what the cause can be, for

the little ones have taken no food. Their weight has not increased; on

the contrary, it has diminished; for we must remember that the skin has

been cast. The volume increases, but not the mass. There is, therefore,

a distension up to a certain point, which may be compared with that of

inorganic bodies under the influence of heat. A secret change takes

place, which groups the living molecules into a more spacious

combination; and the volume increases without the addition of fresh

materials. One who, possessed of a fine patience and suitably equipped,

cared to follow the rapid changes of this architecture would, I think,

reap a harvest of some value. I, in my penury, abandon the problem to

others.

The remnants of the peeling process are white strips, satiny rags,

which, so far from falling to the ground, adhere to the back of the

mother Scorpion, especially near the base of the legs, where they

become tangled into a soft carpet on which the lately-stripped insects

rest. The mount now boasts a saddle-cloth well adapted to hold her

restless riders in their seats. Whether these have to alight or to

remount, the layer of tatters, now become a solid harness, affords

support for rapid movement.

When I topple over the family with a slight stroke of the camel-hair

pencil, it is amusing to see how quickly the unhorsed ones resume their

seat in the saddle. The fringes of the housings are grasped, the tail

is used as a lever and, with a bound, the rider is in his place. This

curious carpet, a real boarding-net which makes climbing easy, lasts,

without dislocations, for nearly a week, that is to say, until the

emancipation. Then it falls off of its own accord, either as a whole or

piecemeal, and nothing remains of it when the young are dispersed over

the surrounding country.

Meantime, signs of the colouring appear; the tail and belly are tinged

with saffron, the claws assume the soft brilliancy of translucent

amber. Youth beautifies all things. The little Languedocian Scorpions

are really magnificent. If they remained thus, if they did not carry a

poison-still, soon to become threatening, they would be pretty

creatures which we should find a pleasure in rearing. Soon the wish for

emancipation awakens in them. They gladly descend from the mother’s

back to frolic merrily round about her. If they stray too far, the

mother cautions them and brings them back again by sweeping the rake of

her arms over the sand.

At the time of the siesta, the sight furnished by the Scorpioness is

almost as good as that of the Hen and her Chicks at rest. Most of the

little ones are on the ground, pressed close against their mother: a

few are stationed on the white saddle-cloth, a delightful cushion.

There are some who clamber up the the mother’s tail, perch on the crest

of the curve and seem to delight in looking down from this point of

vantage upon the crowd. More acrobats arrive, who dislodge them and

take their places. All want their share in the curiosities provided by

the conning-tower.

The bulk of the family is around the mother; there is a constant swarm

of brats that crawl under the belly and there squat, leaving their

forehead, with the gleaming black eye-points, outside. The more

restless prefer the mother’s legs, which to them represent a gymnasium;

they here swing as on a trapeze. Next, at their leisure, the whole

troop climb up to her back again, resume their places and settle down;

and nothing more stirs, neither mother nor little ones.

This period, during which the Scorpion is matured and prepared for

emancipation, lasts a week, exactly as long as the strange process that

trebles the volume without food. The family remains upon the mother’s

back for a fortnight, all told. The Lycosa carries her young for six or

seven months, during which time they are always active and lively,

although unfed. What do those of the Scorpion eat, at least after the

excoriation that has given them agility and a new life? Does the mother

invite them to her meals and reserve the tenderest morsels of her

repasts for them? She invites nobody; she reserves nothing.

I serve her a Locust, chosen among the small game that seems to me

best-suited to the delicate nature of her offspring. While she gnaws

the morsel, without troubling in the least about her surroundings, one

of the little ones slips down her back, advances over her head and

leans down to enquire what is happening. He touches her jaws with the

tip of his leg; then briskly he decamps, startled. He makes off; and he

is well-advised. The abyss engaged in the work of mastication, so far

from reserving him a mouthful, might perhaps snap him up and swallow

him without giving him a further thought.

A second is hanging on behind the Locust, the fore part of whose body

the mother is munching. He nibbles, he pulls, eager for a bit. His

perseverance comes to nothing: the fare is too tough.

It is plain enough to see: the appetite is awakening; the young would

gladly accept food, if the mother took the least care to offer them

any, especially food adapted to the frailty of their tender stomachs:

but she just eats for herself and that is all.

What do you want, O my pretty little Scorpions, who have provided me

with such delightful moments? You want to go away, to some distant

place, in search of victuals, of the tiniest of tiny beasties. I can

see it by your restless roving. You run away from your mother, who, on

her side, ceases to know you. You are strong enough: the hour has come

to disperse.

If I knew exactly what infinitesimal game is to your liking and if I

had sufficient time to procure it for you, I should love to continue

your upbringing, but not among the potsherds of your native cage, in

the company of your elders. I know their intolerant spirit. The ogres

would eat you up, my children. Your own mothers would not spare you.

You are strangers to them henceforth. Next year, at the wedding-season,

they would eat you, the jealous creatures! You had better go; prudence

demands it.

Where could I lodge you and how could I feed you? The best thing is to

say good-bye, not without a certain regret on my part. One of these

days, I will take you and scatter you in your own domain, the

rock-strewn slope where the sun is so hot. There you will find brothers

and sisters who, hardly larger than yourselves, are already leading

solitary lives under their little stones, sometimes no bigger than a

thumb-nail. There you will learn the hard struggle for life better than

you would with me.

SOME PLANT LICE

CHAPTER I

THE PENTATOMÆ AND THEIR EGGS

Of the forms which life is able to bestow on her creations, that of the

bird’s egg is one of the simplest and loveliest. Nowhere do we find the

beauty of the circle and the ellipse, the geometrical bases of organic

bodies, combined with greater precision. At one of the poles is the

sphere, the perfect form, capable of enclosing the greatest volume in

the smallest envelope; at the other is the point of the ellipsoid,

which tempers the monotonous austerities of the big end.

The colour-scheme, likewise very simple, adds its graces to those of

form. Some eggs display the dull white of chalk, others the translucid

white of polished ivory. The Wheat-ear’s are a delicate blue, like that

of a sky freshly washed by a rain-storm; the Nightingale’s are a dark

green, like that of a pickled olive; the eggs of certain Warblers are

tinted with an exquisite carnation, like that of roses still in the

bud.

The Yellow-hammer scrawls an indecipherable scribble on her eggs; that

is to say, the shells display mottled markings, an artistic mixture of

lines and blots. The Butcher-birds encircle the large end with a

speckled crown; the Blackbird and the Raven sprinkle brown splashes,

innocent of design, on a greenish-blue ground; the Curlew and the Gull

employ large spots like those on the Leopard’s coat; and so with the

rest; each has its speciality, its trade-mark, always designed in sober

colours, the mere matching of which constitutes a merit.

With the exquisite simplicity of its geometry and its ornament, the

bird’s egg enchants the least cultivated eye. In return for the little

services which they render me, I sometimes admit to my study certain

small boys of the neighbourhood, zealous searchers all. Now what do

these simple-minded youngsters see in my work-room, of which they have

heard all sorts of wonders? They see big, glass-fronted cupboards in

which a thousand curious things are arranged, the cumbersome

accumulations that gather about any one who investigates stones, plants

and animals. Shells predominate.

Huddling together in mutual encouragement, my shy visitors admire the

magnificent Sea-snails of every shape and colour; they point a finger

at this or that shell which, by the lustre of its mother-of-pearl, its

size and its strange protuberances, is especially conspicuous in the

midst of all the rest. They gaze at my treasures and I watch their

faces. I read on them surprise, amazement and nothing more.

These things out of the sea, too complex in formation to impress a

novice, are mysterious objects that speak no known language. My little

giddy-pates are bewildered by these corkscrew stair-cases, these

scrolls and spirals and conchs, whose geometry is beyond their

comprehension. They are left almost cold before this display of oceanic

wealth. If I could get at what lies at the back of their minds, these

children would say:

“How funny!”

They would never say:

“How pretty!”

It is quite another story with the boxes in which the birds’-eggs of

the district are arranged, clutch by clutch, lying on cotton-wool,

protected from the light. Now their cheeks flush with excitement and

they whisper, in one another’s ears, which they would choose of the

finest group in the box. There is no amazement now, but ingenuous

admiration. It is true that the egg recalls the nest and the young

birds, those incomparable joys of childhood. Nevertheless, a rush of

reverent emotion evoked by the beautiful may be read on their faces.

The gems of the sea astound my little visitors; the simple beauty of

the eggs arouses a more human ecstasy.

In the very great majority of cases, the insect’s egg is far from

attaining this consummate perfection, which impresses even the

unaccustomed gaze. The usual shapes are the sphere, the spindle or

cone, and the cylinder, with rounded ends, none of which is especially

graceful, owing to the absence of harmonious combinations of curves.

Many of them are dingy in colour; some, by their excessive richness,

form a violent contrast with the shortcomings of the germ inside. The

eggs of certain Moths and Butterflies are beads of bronze or nickel. In

these life seems to germinate within the rigid walls of a metal box.

If we employ the magnifying-glass, we find that ornamentation of detail

is not unusual, but it is always complicated, without that nobler

simplicity which constitutes true beauty. The Clythræ [52] enclose

their eggs in a shell whose substance is laminated in scales like those

of a hop-cone, or twisted into intersecting diagonal fillets; certain

Locusts engrave their spindles, scooping out spiral rows of little pits

like those of a thimble. There is, to be sure, no lack of prettiness in

all this, but how far removed is such exuberance from the noble

austerity of beauty!

The insect has ovarian æsthetics of its own, which have no relation to

those of the bird. I know of one case, however, in which comparison is

possible. An insect of indifferent repute, a woodland Bug, the

Pentatoma of the naturalists, may offer its egg for comparison with the

bird’s. This flat-bodied insect, emitting a horrible smell, lays

masterpieces of elegant simplicity, and, at the same time, of

mechanical ingenuity; it disgusts us by its cosmetic, its hair-oil; but

it interests us by its egg, which is worthy to rank beside that of the

bird.

I have just made a discovery on a sprig of asparagus. It is a cluster

of eggs, about thirty in number, arranged in rows, in close contact,

like the beads on a piece of embroidery. I recognize the eggs of a

woodland Bug. The hatching took place some little time ago, for the

family has not yet dispersed. The empty eggshells have remained in

place without any loss of shape, except that their lids are open.

What a delightful collection of miniature vases in translucent

alabaster, barely clouded with light grey! One would like to read a

fairy-tale of the world of tiny things in which the fairies take tea

out of such cups as these. The body of the vessel, a graceful oval cut

square at the top, shows a delicate brown network of polygonal meshes.

Imagine the top of a bird’s egg neatly removed, making a dainty little

goblet of the remainder, and you have something very like the egg of

the Bug. In either case there are the same gentle curves.

Here the resemblance ceases. It is in the upper part of the egg that

the insect displays its originality; its creation is a box with a lid.

This slightly convex cover is ornamented, like the body of the jar,

with a network of fine mesh; it is further embellished along the edge

with an opal border. At the hatching it swings open as on a hinge and

comes away all of a piece. Sometimes it falls off and leaves the jar

wide open; sometimes it falls back into its normal position, once more

closing the jar, which looks as though it were still intact. Lastly,

the mouth is surrounded by very fine, thread-like attachments. These

are, as it were, rivets to hold the lid in position, so as to close the

vase hermetically.

We must not overlook one exceedingly characteristic detail. Quite close

to the rim, inside the shell, there is always visible, after the

hatching, a mark like a broad arrow, or a capital T, with the arms

deflected like those of an anchor. What is the meaning of this

infinitesimal detail? Is it a latch, a sort of lock with a bolt and

hasp? Is it a potter’s mark, conferring a certificate of origin on the

masterpiece? What a strange effort of ceramic art merely to hold the

egg of a Bug!

The young ones have not yet left the battery of jars from which they

recently emerged. Gathered together in a heap, they are waiting for the

bath of air and sunlight to harden them before dispersing and

implanting their suckers where they please. They are plump, thickset,

black, with the under surface of the belly red and the sides laced with

the same colour. How did they get out of their jars? By what artifice

did they raise the firmly-sealed lid? Let us try to find the answer to

this interesting question.

It is the end of April. In the enclosure, just outside my door, the

camphor-scented rosemaries are in full flower, bringing me visits from

a multitude of insects which I can consult at any time. Various species

of Pentatomæ abound, but do not lend themselves to precise observation,

by reason of their wandering life. If I want to know exactly which egg

belongs to which species or, above all, if I want to learn how the

hatching is accomplished, it will not be enough to rely upon chance

inspections of the flowering shrubs. It will be better to resort to

rearing the insects under a wire-gauze cover.

My captives, isolated according to species and represented each by a

certain number of couples, give me hardly any trouble. All they need is

a cheerful sun and a bunch of rosemary daily renewed. I add to the

furnishing of the cage a few leafy twigs from various bushes. The

insect will choose whichever suits her as the spot for laying her eggs.

By the first fortnight in May the imprisoned Bugs have provided me with

eggs in excess of my hopes, eggs at once collected, together with their

support, species by species, and placed in small glass tubes, where,

unless I fail in vigilance, I shall easily be able to follow the

delicate hatching-process.

It is really a beautiful, a most delightful collection, and would be

quite worthy to figure beside the eggs of the bird, if larger

dimensions came to the assistance of our feeble sight. From the moment

we have to resort to the microscope, we allow the splendid to escape

us. Let us magnify the Bug’s egg under the lens and it will amaze us as

surely as the Stonechat’s sky-blue egg, and perhaps even more. What a

pity that such beauty escapes our admiration by its minuteness!

The shape is never a complete ovoid: that is the bird’s perquisite. The

upper end of the Pentatoma’s egg is always finished off with a sudden

truncation, into which a slightly convex lid is fitted, and we have

before us a tiny ciborium, a delicious casket, an antique urn, a

cylindrical cask with rounded ends, a full-bodied vase of Oriental

porcelain, with ornaments consisting of bands, rosettes or traceries,

varying according to the mother’s individual taste. Always, moreover,

when the egg is empty, we find a most delicate fringe of herring-boned

threads running round the mouth. These are the rivets to fasten the

lid, which are pushed up and back at the moment when the new-born

insect is released.

Lastly, in all these egg-shells, after the hatching, we find inside

them, quite close to the rim, that black mark in the shape of a broad

arrow, of which we have already asked ourselves whether it is a

trade-mark or a sort of lock or bolt. The future will show us how far

our guesses fall short of the reality.

The eggs are never sown at random. The whole batch is laid in a

close-packed group, in regular ranks of varying lengths, so that they

make a sort of mosaic of beads firmly fixed to their common support,

usually a leaf. They adhere so firmly that we may brush the leaf with a

camel-hair pencil, or even touch them with the finger, without in any

way disturbing their beautiful arrangement. After the young have gone

we find the open shells still in position, like so many little jam-pots

standing in rows on a market-woman’s barrow.

Let me end by giving a few specific details. The eggs of the

Black-horned Pentatoma (P. nigricorne) are cylindroid in form, the base

being a segment of a sphere. The lid, bearing a broad white band at the

edge, frequently, but not always, has in the centre a transparent

protuberance, a sort of knob like that on the lid of a preserve-jar.

Its entire surface is smooth and glossy, with no other ornament than

its simplicity. The colour varies according to the degree of maturity.

When recently laid the eggs are of a uniform straw-yellow: later, owing

to the gradual organization of the germ, they turn a pale orange, with

a triangular bright-red patch in the centre of the lid. When empty they

are a magnificent, pellucid opal-white, except the lid, which has

become transparent as glass.

Of the clutches of eggs obtained the most numerous was a patch of nine

rows, each containing about a dozen eggs. The total was thus about a

hundred. But usually the number of eggs is smaller than this, amounting

to only half as many or less. Groups containing about a score of eggs

are not uncommon. The enormous difference between these extremes

testifies to multiple layings at different spots, which, in view of the

insect’s rapid flight, may be at quite a distance from one another.

This detail will be of value when the time comes.

The Pale-Green Pentatoma (P. praesinum) moulds her eggs in little

barrels, ovoid at the bottom and adorned over their whole surface with

a network of fine polygonal meshes in relief. Their colour is a sooty

brown, and, after the hatching, a very light brown. The largest groups

of eggs contain thirty or so. It is probably to this species that the

eggs belong which first attracted my attention on a sprig of asparagus.

As for the Berry Pentatoma (P. baccarum) here we again have barrels

with rounded ends, covered all over the surface with a tracery of

meshes. At first they are opaque and dark; then, being empty, they

become translucent and white or pale-pink. Of these eggs I find groups

of fifty and others of fifteen or even less.

That blessed plant of the kitchen-gardens, the cabbage, gives me the

Ornate Pentatoma (P. ornatum), striped black and red. The eggs of this

species are the prettiest of all in colouring. They are like little

casks with the two ends convex, especially the lower. The microscope

shows us a surface engraved with pits, like those of a thimble,

arranged with exquisite regularity. At the top and bottom of the

cylinder there is a broad dull-black band; on the sides is a wide white

belt with four large black spots symmetrically placed. The lid,

surrounded with snow-white filaments and edged with white, swells into

a black dome with a central white spot. In short, a funeral urn, with

its violent contrast of coal-black and creamy white. The Etruscans

would have considered it a magnificent model for their burial vessels.

These eggs, with their funeral ornamentation, are arranged in small

groups, generally in two rows. There are hardly a dozen all told: a

fresh proof that the eggs must be laid in a number of batches and at

different points; for the Cabbage Bug cannot limit herself to this

paltry number when one of her relatives exceeds the hundred.

May is not over before the various batches of eggs collected and placed

in tubes hatch out, first one and then another. Two or three weeks are

enough to develop the germ. This is the time for constant vigilance, if

I wish to understand the mechanism employed for the emergence and,

above all, the function of the strange tool, with the three black arms,

which I find in every shell, at the edge of the opening, once the

new-born larva has departed.

Those eggs which are translucent from the outset—for example, those of

the Black-horned Pentatoma—enable me, in the first place, to discover

that the implement of unknown use makes its appearance rather late,

when the approaching deliverance is announced by a change in the colour

of the lid. It is not, therefore, an original part of the egg, as this

descended from the ovaries; it is elaborated during the process of

development, and even at a somewhat advanced phase, when the little Bug

has already been formed.

We must therefore cease to regard it, as I did at first, as a spring, a

lock, some sort of a hinge to hold the lid in place. An actual device

for keeping the egg closed and protecting the germ would have to be in

existence when the egg was laid. And it is just at the end, when the

time has come to leave it, that the egg reveals this device. It is a

question no longer of closing, but of opening. And, in this case, might

not the puzzling implement be a key, a lever to force open the lid,

held on by thread-like rivets, and perhaps also by the glue of an

adhesive? Assiduous patience will tell us.

Holding the magnifying-glass above my test-tubes, which I examine every

moment, at last I witness the hatching. The process is just beginning.

The lid is rising imperceptibly at one pole of its diameter; at the

other it is tilting like a door on its hinges. The youngster has its

back to the wall of the barrel, just below the edge of the lid, which

is already gaping, a capital situation, enabling me to follow with some

exactness the progress of the deliverance.

The little Bug, shrunken and motionless, has its head crowned with a

skin cap, suspected rather than seen, so fine is it. Later, when it

falls off, this cap will be plainly visible. It serves as the base of a

trihedral angle. The three arms forming this angle are rigid and

intensely black and look as if they ought to be of a horny nature. Two

of them extend between the eyes, which are bright red; the third passes

down behind the head and is connected with the others, right and left,

by a dark, very fine line. I might very well regard these dark lines as

tense threads, ligaments which brace the three arms of the apparatus

and prevent them from slipping farther apart, thereby blunting the

point of the angle, which is itself the key of the casket, that is, the

rammer for pushing back the lid. This three-cornered mitre protects the

head, which is still soft and fleshy and incapable of forcing the

obstruction: with its adamantine point truly applied right at the edge

of the lid it has a firm grip of the disk which has to be unfastened.

This mechanism, this cap surmounted by an armoured point, must have its

motive force. Where is it? It is at the top of the head. Look

carefully, and there, involving a certain small area, almost a point,

you will see rapid pulsations, we might almost say piston-strokes,

produced, beyond a doubt, by sudden waves of blood. By hurriedly

injecting what little fluid its body contains under its pliant cranium,

the tiny creature turns its weakness into energy. The three-cornered

helmet rises, pushing upwards, always pressing its point firmly on the

same point of the lid. No blow is struck upon the tool; there is no

intermittent percussion, but a continuous thrust.

The operation is so laborious that it lasts for more than an hour. By

imperceptible degrees the lid is unfastened and rises obliquely, but as

a rule continues to adhere to the rim of the vase at the opposite pole

of the diameter. At this pivotal point, where it would seem that there

must be a hinge, the lens reveals nothing peculiar. Here, as every

elsewhere, there is a mere row of threads, drawn down to form rivets

for closing the cask. On the side opposite the point attacked, these

rivets, less disturbed than the rest, do not quite give way, act as a

hinge.

Little by little the tiny creature emerges from its shell. The legs and

antennæ, economically folded over the thorax and abdomen, are

completely motionless. Nothing moves, yet the Bug protrudes farther and

farther from its casket, doubtless with the aid of a process like that

employed by the larva of the Balaninus, [53] on leaving its nut. The

flow of blood which causes the piston-strokes of the cranium distends

also that part of the body which is already free and converts it into a

supporting cushion; the hinder part, which is still imprisoned, is

diminished accordingly and in its turn enters the narrow opening. The

insect passes through a draw-plate, so gently and carefully that the

most I can detect is a tentative rocking to and fro at distant

intervals as it drags itself from its socket.

At last the rivets are forced, the casket is open, and the lid, now on

a slant, is sufficiently raised. The three-cornered mitre has done its

work. What will become of it? Henceforth useless as a tool, it has to

disappear; and, as a matter of fact, I see it discarded. The filmy

head-dress which served as its foundation tears, becomes a tattered rag

and very slowly slips over the Bug’s ventral surface, dragging with it

the hard little black contrivance, which still retains its shape.

Scarcely has this relic slipped midway down the belly when the tiny

creature, hitherto motionless in the attitude of a mummy, frees its

legs and antennæ from their economical position, stretches them out and

impatiently waves them to and fro. It is over: the insect leaves its

sheath.

The instrument of release, still in the shape of a T with arms bent

slightly downwards and sideways, remains sticking to the wall of the

shell, near the opening. Long after the insect’s departure the lens

finds the ingenious triangle in its place. Its formation is the same in

the various Pentatomæ; but until we surprise the insect in the act of

hatching its function is incomprehensible.

A word more on the manner of opening the lidded casket. I have said

that the young Bug has its back to the wall of the little barrel, as

far as possible from the centre. It is here that it is born, dons its

tiara and afterwards pushes with its head. Why does it not occupy the

central region, a position which would seem to be prescribed by the

shape of the egg and the more effectual protection of the grub’s early

frailty? Can there be any advantage in being born elsewhere, on the

very circumference?

Yes, there is, and a very distinct advantage, of a mechanical order.

With the top of its head, which throbs with the rushes of blood, the

new-born insect thrusts his pointed cap against the lid to be

unfastened. What can be the cranial thrust of a drop of albumen but

lately congealed into a living entity? He would be a bold man who

should venture to reply, so far is it beneath all evaluation. And this

mere nothing has to push open the solid lid of the box.

Let us picture the thrust applied to the centre. In that case the

effort to dislodge the lid, the veriest trifle of an effort, would be

uniformly distributed over the entire circumference, and all the rivets

which fasten it would play their part in the resistance offered.

Singly, the stitches would give way before the tiny force available;

but all together they are invincible. The method of the central thrust

is therefore impracticable.

If we wished to loosen a nailed plank, it would be an illogical action

to bang it in the middle. The whole of the nails would react in a

common and insurmountable resistance. On the contrary, we attack it at

one end; we apply the leverage of our implement progressively to one

nail after another. The little Bug in its casket does much the same: it

pushes out the extreme edge of the lid, so that, beginning at the point

attacked, the rivets give way, one by one. The total resistance is

overcome because it is divided.

Well done, little Bug! You have your own science of mechanics, based on

the same laws as ours; you know the secrets of the lever and the

lifting-jack. To break its shell, the nascent bird grows a callosity on

its beak, a pick-axe point whose function is to break down the chalky

wall piecemeal. When the task is accomplished this callus, the tool of

a day, disappears. You have something better than the bird’s device.

When the hour of your emergence comes, you don a cap in which three

stiff ribs converge to a point. At the base of this appliance your soft

cranium acts like the piston of an hydraulic press. Thus attacked, the

roof of your hut is unfastened and thrown back. The bird’s callosity

disappears when the shell is in pieces; so does the mitre with which

you push out the head of your barrel. As soon as the lid opens wide

enough to let you pass, you doff your cap with its tripod of rods.

Your egg, however, is not broken; there is no violent demolition such

as that practised by the bird. When empty, the egg-shell is not a ruin:

it is still the graceful little egg that it was in the beginning,

rendered yet more exquisite by its translucence, which enhances its

beauties. In what school, little Bug, did you learn the art of opening

your natal casket and the use of your little contrivance? There are

those who will say:

“In the school of chance.”

But you, in all humility, cock your mitre and reply:

“That’s not true.”

The Pentatoma is noted for another detail, which, if it were definitely

proved, would surpass a hundredfold the marvels of the egg. I quote the

following passage from De Geer, [54] the Swedish Réaumur [55]:

“The Bugs of this species (Pentatoma griseum) live on the birch-tree.

In the early part of July, I found several of them accompanied by their

young. Each mother was surrounded by a troop of young ones, to the

number of twenty, thirty and even forty. She always kept close beside

them, commonly on one of the catkins of the tree that contained her

eggs, and sometimes on a leaf. I have noted that these little Bugs and

their mother do not always remain on the same spot, and that as soon as

the mother begins to move away all her little ones follow her, stopping

whenever the mother calls a halt. She thus leads them from catkin to

catkin or leaf to leaf and takes them wherever she pleases, as a Hen

does her Chicks.

“There are Bugs that do not leave their offspring; they even keep watch

over them and take the greatest care of them while they are young. One

day I happened to cut a young birch-branch peopled with such a family

and I first observed the extremely uneasy mother, incessantly beating

her wings with a rapid movement, without, however, stirring from the

spot, as though to drive away the enemy that had just approached,

whereas, in any other circumstances, she would at once have flown away

or sought to escape, which proves that she was remaining only to defend

her young.”

M. Karl de Geer has observed that it is chiefly against the male of her

species that the mother Bug is obliged to defend her young, because he

tries to devour them wherever he comes upon them; and on such occasions

she always tries with all her might to protect them against his

attacks.

In his Curiosités d’historie naturelle, Boitard still farther

embellishes the picture of family life painted by De Geer:

“It is most curious,” he says, “to see how the mother Bug, when a few

drops of rain are falling, leads her young under a leaf or the fork of

a branch to shelter them. Even there her anxious affection is not

reassured; she drives them into a closely-packed flock, places herself

in their midst and covers them with her wings, which she spreads over

them umbrella-wise; and, in spite of the discomfort of her position,

she retains this attitude of a brooding Hen until the storm has blown

over.”

Shall I confess it? This umbrella made of the mother’s wings during

showery weather, this procession of a Hen leading her Chicks, this

devotion in warding off the attacks of a father inclined to devour his

family leave me just a little incredulous, without surprising me,

experience having taught me that the books are full of little anecdotes

incapable of surviving the ordeal of a strict investigation.

An incomplete observation, wrongly interpreted, sets the story going.

Then come the compilers, who faithfully hand down the legend, the

unsound fruit of the imagination; and error, confirmed by repetition,

becomes an article of faith. What, for example, was not reported of the

Sacred Beetle and her pill, the Necrophorus [56] and her work of

burial, the Hunting Wasp and her game, the Cicada and her well, before

the truth was arrived at? The real, which is perfectly simple, and

supremely beautiful, too often escapes us, giving way before the

imaginary, which is less troublesome to acquire. Instead of going back

to the facts and seeing for ourselves, we blindly follow tradition.

To-day no one would write a few lines on the Pentatomæ without dragging

in the Swedish naturalist’s doubtful story, and no one, as far as I

know, has mentioned the genuine marvels connected with the mechanism of

the hatching.

What can De Geer have seen? The observer’s high standing gives us

confidence; none the less, I shall take the liberty of experimenting in

my turn before accepting the master’s statements.

The Grey Bug, the subject of my story, is less frequent than the others

in my neighbourhood: on the rosemaries in the enclosure, my field of

exploration, I find three or four which, when placed under glass, do

not give me any eggs. The set-back does not seem irreparable: what the

grey refuses to reveal the green or the yellow or the red-and-black

striped—one and all of similar formation and like habits—will show me.

In species so closely akin, the family cares of the one must, in all

but a few details, be reproduced in the others. Let us then note how

the four Pentatomæ reared in captivity behave in the matter of their

new-born young. Their unanimous testimony will convince us.

At the very outset I was struck by a fact which disagreed with what I

had a right to expect in a future Hen leading her Chicks. The mother

pays no attention to her eggs. When the last has been laid in its place

at the extreme end of the last row, she makes off, heedless of what she

has left behind her. She does not trouble about it any more, does not

return to it. If the hazards of her wanderings lead her up to it, she

steps on the heap, crosses it and passes on, indifferent. The evidence

leaves nothing to be desired: the coming upon a patch of eggs is an

incident of no interest to the mother.

We must not attribute this negligence to the aberrations which may

possibly occur in a state of captivity. In the perfect liberty of the

fields I have come across many batches of eggs, perhaps including those

of the Grey Bug; never have I seen the mother standing by her eggs,

which she would have to do if her family required protection as soon as

hatched.

The gravid mother is a quick flier and of a vagabond temperament. Once

she has flown to a considerable distance from the leaf which has

received her eggs, how is she to remember, two or three weeks later,

that the hour for hatching is at hand? How is she to find her eggs

again? Moreover, how is she to distinguish them from those of another

mother? To believe her capable of such feats of clairvoyance and memory

in the immensity of the open fields would be midsummer madness.

Never, I say, did I detect a mother permanently posted beside the eggs

which she had fastened to a leaf. Further, the total emission is split

up into partial deposits dispersed at random, so that the whole tribe

comprises a series of clans encamped here and there, often removed to

considerable distances which it is impossible to specify.

To rediscover these flocks at the time of the hatching, which falls

earlier or later according to the date of production and the degree of

exposure to the sun; then, from all over the country-side, to gather

into one herd the whole of her very frail and short-legged offspring:

this were an obvious impossibility. Let us nevertheless suppose that,

by a stroke of good fortune, one of these groups is found and

recognized and that the mother devotes herself to it. The others are

necessarily abandoned. They thrive none the less well for that. Why,

then, should some of the young Bugs be so strangely favoured by

maternal solicitude while the majority are able to do without it? Such

peculiarities make one suspicious.

De Geer speaks of groups of twenty. These, we are forced to believe,

were not the complete family, but detachments sprung from a partial

laying. A Pentatoma smaller than the Grey Bug has given me, in one

single deposit, more than a hundred eggs. This fecundity must be the

general rule where the mode of life is the same. Apart from the twenty

watched, then, what became of the rest, left to their own devices?

With all due respect to the Swedish naturalist, the tender cares of the

mother Bug and the unnatural appetites of the father eating his

children must be relegated to the fairy-tales with which history is

crammed. I can obtain, in my breeding-cages, as many hatchings as I

wish. The parents are close at hand, under the same cover. What do they

do respectively in the presence of the little ones?

Nothing whatever: the fathers do not hasten to slaughter their brats

nor do the mothers hasten to their rescue. They wander to and fro on

the wire trellis; they take their rest in the restaurant provided by a

tuft of rosemary; they pass through the groups of new-born Bugs and

topple them over, without evil intent, but also without the least

consideration. They are so small, the poor little wretches, and so

feeble! A passer-by who grazes them with the tip of his foot turns them

over on their backs. Like overturned Tortoises, they vainly kick and

wriggle; no one heeds them.

Come then, O devoted mother! Since your family is beset by the danger

of capsizing and other disagreeable accidents, place yourself at their

head; lead them, step by step, into peaceful pastures; cover them with

the buckler of your wing-cases! Any one waiting to observe these

beautiful actions, these admirable and edifying moral characteristics,

will waste his time and his patience. In three months of diligent

watching I never saw, on the part of my charges, any action which in

any way suggested the maternal solicitude so often extolled by the

compilers of history.

Nature the universal nurse, alma parens rerum, is infinitely tender in

her treatment of the germs, the treasure of the future; she is a harsh

step-mother to the parent. As soon as the creature is capable of

supporting itself, she delivers it without pity to life’s cruel

schooling, which teaches it to resist in the fierce struggle for

existence. At first a tender mother, she gives the Pentatoma a

delightful casket with a sealed lid to guard the budding flesh from

harm; she caps the tiny insect with a mechanical device to set it free,

a masterpiece of delicate ingenuity; and then, a stern schoolmistress,

she says to the little one:

“I am leaving you. You must now fend for yourself in the hurly-burly of

the world.”

And the little insect does fend for itself. I see the new-born Bugs,

pressed close against one another, remaining for some days on the patch

of empty egg-shells. Their flesh grows firmer and their colouring

brighter. Mothers pass at no great distance: none of them pays any

attention to the drowsy company.

When hunger comes, one of the little ones moves away from the group in

search of a canteen; the others follow; they love to feel shoulder

touching shoulder, like grazing Sheep. The first to move draws the

whole band after him; they make their way in a flock to the tender

spots where they insert their suckers and drink their fill; whereupon

all return to their native village, seeking a resting-place on the tops

of the empty eggs. These expeditions in common are repeated within an

increasing radius, till at last, having grown a little stronger, the

community, becoming emancipated, makes off and disperses, no longer

returning to the place of its birth. Henceforth each lives as he

pleases.

What would happen if, when the flock is moving about, a mother were

encountered, slow-stepping as the sober Bugs so often are? The little

ones, I fancy, would confidently follow their chance-met leader as they

follow those among themselves who are the first to make a start. We

should then see something like the Hen at the head of her Chicks;

accident would give all the appearance of maternal solicitude to a

stranger quite indifferent to the mob of brats at her heels.

The worthy De Geer, it seems to me, must have been deceived by such

meetings as these, in which maternal care played no part whatever. A

little colouring, by way of involuntary adornment, completed the

picture; and since then the domestic virtues of the Grey Bug have been

lauded in all the books.

CHAPTER II

THE MASKED BUG

I met with this insect unexpectedly and in circumstances that hardly

seemed to promise an interesting discovery. A certain enquiry into the

spoilers of dead meat, an enquiry set forth elsewhere, [57] had brought

me to the village butcher’s. What will not one do in the hope of

securing an idea! The hunt after this rare quarry led me to the

workshop of the slaughterer, an excellent man, for that matter, who did

me the honours of his establishment to the best of his ability.

I wanted to see not the actual shop, so hateful to look upon, but the

shed or what not in which the offal was collected. The butcher took me

to the garret, dimly lit by a dormer-window which was left open night

and day, in all weathers, to air the place. Continuous ventilation was

not unwelcome in that nauseous atmosphere, above all at the hottest

time of year, when my visit was paid. The mere recollection of that

garret is revolting to my senses.

Here, on a stretched cord, some blood-stained sheepskins are drying; in

one corner is a heap of stinking tallow, in another are bones, horns

and hoofs. These rags and tatters of death answer my purpose capitally.

Under the shovelfuls of fat which I turn over, the Dermestes and her

grub are swarming by the thousand; Clothes-moths flit indolently to and

fro; and Flies with big red eyes keep on buzzing in and out of the

hollow bones that still hold a little marrow. I expected this

population, the habitual inmates of carrion refuse. But here is one

which I did not anticipate: On the whitewashed wall are certain black

patches of unsightly insects, gathered in motionless groups. Among them

I recognize the Masked Bug, or Masked Reduvius (R. personatus, LIN.), a

large Bug of some celebrity. There are nearly a hundred of them,

divided into separate flocks.

The butcher watches me as I capture my discovery and put it into a box,

and is surprised to see me fearlessly handling the repulsive creature.

It is more than he would ever venture to do.

“It comes and plasters itself against the wall,” he tells me, “and

there it stays. If I sweep it off, next day it’s back, as sure as fate.

I don’t say it does any harm. It doesn’t spoil my hides, it doesn’t

touch my fats. What does it come here for every summer? I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either,” I reply, “but I shall try to find out; and, when

I know, I can tell you about it, if you’d like me to. It may have

something to do with the preservation of your hides. We shall see.”

Behold me then, as I leave this offal-store, the shepherd of a

chance-met flock. They are not much to look at. Covered with dust,

black as pitch, flat, like the true Bugs that they are, standing

awkwardly high on their legs, lanky and skinny: no, they do not inspire

confidence. The head is so small that there is only just room for the

eyes, reticulated domes whose great prominence seems to indicate good

powers of vision by night. It is set on an absurd neck which looks as

though it had been strangled with a bow-string. The corselet is

jet-black, with burnished prominences.

Let us turn it over. The beak is monstrous. Its base covers all of the

face that is not occupied by the eyes. It is not the usual rostrum, the

drill of the sap-sucking Hemiptera; it is a rude implement, an elbowed

tool, crooked like a bent forefinger. What can the creature do with

this barbarous weapon? When it is feeding I see a black thread, as fine

as a hair, issuing from the beak. This is the slender scalpel: the rest

is the sheath and the stout handle. This rude equipment tells us that

the Reduvius is an executioner.

What sort of exploits can we expect from it? Stabbing and murdering:

actions of little interest, because of their frequency. But we must

make a considerable allowance for the unexpected; interesting details

sometimes lie dormant and spring up suddenly amid squalid surroundings.

Perhaps the Reduvius has in store for us facts worthy of record. Let us

try to rear him.

His weapon, a stout yataghan, tells us that the Reduvius is a murderer.

What victim does he require? This is the rearing problem before us. It

so happens that some time ago I saw the dingy-looking Bug at grips with

the smallest of our Cetoniæ, so well-named the Pall-bearing Cetonia,

[58] because of her white spots on a black background. This accidental

observation sets me on the right track. I house my flock in a large

glass jar with a bed of sand, and as food I serve up the Cetonia

aforesaid, which is common in spring on the flowers in the enclosure,

but scarce at this time of year. The victim is very readily accepted.

Next day I find her dead. One of the Reduvii, with his probe implanted

in the joint of the neck, is working at the corpse and draining it dry.

In the absence of Cetoniæ I fall back upon any sort of game suited to

the size of my boarders; and I find that any sort answers my purpose,

irrespective of the different entomological orders. The usual dish,

because it is the easiest for me to capture, consists of Locusts of

medium size, though they are sometimes larger than the consumer. Often,

too, for the same reason that he is easily obtained, it includes a

Forest Bug, Pentatoma nigricorna. In short, my charges’ diet does not

give me much trouble: anything will do, provided that the prey does not

exceed the powers of the assailant.

I was anxious to witness the attack, but I never managed to do so. As

the big, prominent eyes of the Reduvius warned me, it takes place at

night, at unseasonable hours. However early my inspection, I find the

game lifeless, bereft of all power of movement. The hunter is feasting

upon his prey and lingers over it for some part of the morning. Then,

after many different applications of the probe, now at one point and

now at another, when the victims are completely drained of moisture,

the blood-suckers abandon the dead bodies, gather into a flock, and do

not move all day long, lying flat on the sand at the bottom of the jar.

On the following night, if I renew the victuals, the same massacres are

repeated.

When the prey is a non-armoured insect, a Locust, for example, I have

sometimes noted pulsations in the victim’s abdomen. Death, therefore,

is not sudden and overwhelming; nevertheless, the quarry must be very

quickly made incapable of resistance.

I have confronted the Reduvius with a big-jawed Decticus, a Platycleis

[59] five or six times the size of his executioner. Next day the

colossus was sucked dry by the dwarf as quickly as a Fly would have

been. A terrible stab had paralysed him. Where was the blow delivered

and how did it take effect?

There is nothing to tell us that the Reduvius is a bravo versed in the

art of murder, acquainted, like the Paralysing Wasps, with the anatomy

of his victims and the secrets of their nerve-centres. No doubt he

drives his stiletto at random into any part where the skin is soft

enough. He kills by injecting venom. His rostrum is a poisoned dagger,

like that of the Gnat, but much more virulent.

It is said, indeed, that the Masked Bug’s bite is painful. Wishing

myself to test its effects, so that I might speak with authority, I

have tried, but in vain, to get myself bitten. When placed on my finger

and pestered, the insect refused to unsheath its weapon. Frequent

handling of my specimens, without the use of tweezers, was no more

successful. On the evidence of others, then, and not from my own

experience, I believe the Reduvius’ bite to be a serious matter.

It must be so, intended as it is to kill, swiftly an insect that is not

always devoid of vigour. To the victim surprised when asleep it must

mean the shooting pain and sudden numbness which the Wasp’s sting would

produce. The blow is struck here or there, at random. It is possible

that the bandit, once the wound has been inflicted, keeps his distance

for a while and waits for the limbs to cease kicking before sitting

down to devour the corpse. Spiders who have caught a dangerous prey in

their webs are wont to take this precaution. They withdraw a little to

one side and await the last convulsions of the fettered victim.

Though the details of the murder escape me, I know how the dead insect

is exploited. I can witness the performance any morning, as often as I

wish. The Reduvius projects from the clumsy scabbard, crooked like a

fore-finger, a delicate black lancet, which is at once a probe and a

suction-pump. The implement is driven into any point of the victim’s

body, provided that it be covered with skin. Then comes absolute

immobility; the banqueter does not budge.

Meanwhile the lancets of the sucker are working, sliding one against

the other, acting as a pump, imbibing the victim’s life-blood. In like

fashion the Cicada drinks the sap of her tree. When she has drained one

part of the bark, she moves on and sinks another well. The Reduvius

does the same; he drains his prey at several points. He goes from the

back of the head to the abdomen, from the abdomen to the neck, from the

neck to the thorax and the joints of the legs. Everything is done

economically.

I watch with interest the tactics of a Bug exploiting his Locust.

Twenty times over I see him changing his point of attack and stopping

for a longer or shorter time according to the wealth encountered. He

ends up with a haunch, attacked at the joint. The barrel is emptied of

its juices until it becomes translucent. If the quarry’s skin is

diaphanous, the same degree of exhaustion may be perceived throughout

the body. Thanks to the action of the infernal pump, a young Praying

Mantis an inch long becomes transparent as a moulted skin.

These blood-sucking appetites remind me of our Bed-bug, who makes

himself so obnoxious by exploring the sleeper, selecting a convenient

spot, leaving it for another and a more profitable, and again moving

on, until, swollen to the size of a currant, he withdraws at the first

glimmer of daylight. The Reduvius aggravates this method: he first

benumbs his victim and then drains it dry. Only the legendary vampire

of romance achieves a like degree of frightfulness.

Now, what was the insect-sucker doing in a butcher’s loft? He certainly

did not find there the victims which I procure for him: Locusts, young

Mantes, Grasshoppers, Chrysomelæ, [60] all lovers of foliage and the

sunlight. These passionate lovers of open-air joys would never venture

into the dark and nauseating offal-store. What, then, do these black

squads clinging to the wall live upon? Such a crowd needs food, and

plenty of it. Where is it?

In the heap of fats, of course! Here a Dermestes (D. Frischii, KUGEL)

[61] swarms promiscuously with her hairy larvæ. The supply is

inexhaustible, and it is probably that the Reduvii hastened hither

attracted by this abundance. Let us then change the bill of fare, let

us substitute Dermestes.

I have just what is needed at my disposal without rushing off to the

butcher’s for a supply. In the garden, at this moment, supported on

reed tripods, there are certain aerial retting-vats in which Moles,

Snakes, Lizards, Toads, Fish and so on attract interminable visits from

the undertakers of the neighbourhood. The most numerous is a Dermestes,

precisely the same as the one in the tallow-loft. This is the very

thing I want.

I serve this Dermestes to my Reduvii, I serve him up lavishly. A

frenzied massacre takes place. Every morning the sand in the jar is

strewn with corpses, many of which are still lying beneath the

murderer’s beak. The conclusion is obvious: the Reduvius kills the

Dermestes whenever the opportunity occurs; without having an exclusive

taste for this sort of game, he bleeds it, more or less eagerly, when

he comes across it.

I shall communicate this result to the worthy fellow to whom I owe the

ingredients of this story. I shall tell him:

“Leave them alone, the ugly creatures whom you see sleeping on the

walls of your loft; don’t drive them away with your broom. They are

doing you a service; they wage war upon the others, the Dermestes, who

are so destructive to hides.”

It may well be that the abundance of Dermestes, an easy prey, was not

the motive which attracted the Reduvii to the butcher’s garret.

Elsewhere, out of doors, there is no lack of game, in great variety and

no less appreciated. Why do the Bugs prefer to gather here? I suspect

that they wish to establish a family. The laying-season cannot be far

away; and the Reduvius has come with the particular object of providing

food and lodging for her offspring. In fact, at the end of June I

obtain the first eggs in my jars. For a fortnight the Bugs continue to

lay abundantly. A few mothers, reared separately, enable me to estimate

their fecundity. I count up thirty to forty eggs for each mother.

Here we no longer see the orderliness dear to the Forest-bugs, who

arrange their eggs on a leaf so methodically, in rows of beads. Far

from representing an extremely accurate piece of work, the Masked Bug’s

batch of eggs is strewn, clumsily, at random. The eggs are isolated,

adhering neither to one another nor to their support. In my

rearing-jars they are scattered over the surface of the sand. Granular

specks of which the mother has taken no care whatever, not even

troubling to fasten them anywhere, they roll hither and thither, at the

least breath of air. A plant is not more heedless of its seeds, which

go where the wind blows them.

These greatly neglected eggs are nevertheless not without beauty of

form; they are oval, amber-red, smooth and glossy and about a

millimetre [62] in length. Near one of the ends there is a fine, dark,

circular line, marking a sort of cap. The Forest-bug’s egg has taught

us the meaning of this circle. It is the line along which the lid of

the casket will open. We have before us for the second time the tiny

miracle of an egg shaped like a casket, which, on hatching, opens

without breaking, by the fall of a little lid which is thrust back by

the tiny creature in the act of birth.

If I can manage to see how the moveable cap is lifted, I shall obtain

the most interesting detail of the Masked Bug’s history; I shall have

the equivalent of the young Forest-bug bursting the ceiling of his

shell by means of a sharp-angled mitre actuated by the hydraulic

pulsations of the head. Let us stint neither time nor patience: the

exodus of a Bug from his egg is a most notable sight.

If the problem has its attractive side, it also presents difficulties.

You have to be on the spot just at the very moment when the lid gives

way, which entails a wearisome vigilance. You also want plenty of

light; and it must be daylight, or the refinements of this very

delicate operation would escape us. The habits of the Reduvius give me

cause to fear that the eggs may be hatched at night: [And the future

will teach me only too well how fully my fears are founded.] No matter:

we will not give in. Perhaps fortune will smile upon me. And, lens in

hand, for a fortnight, at all hours, from morning to night, I keep

watch over a hundred eggs which I have divided among several glass

tubes.

In the Forest-bug’s egg the approach of hatching is announced by a

black line in the form of a broad arrow, or reversed anchor, which

appears not far from the lid and is no other than the liberating

mechanism. The tiny beast covers its head with its pointed mitre. Here

there is nothing of the sort. From first to last, the Masked Bug’s egg

retains its uniform amber colouring, without any sign of an inner lock.

Meanwhile, by the middle of July, the hatchings are becoming numerous.

Every morning I find in my tubes a collection of tiny open pots,

unbroken and amber-coloured as at the beginning. The lid, a concave

dome of exquisite accuracy, is lying on the sand beside the empty

egg-shell; sometimes it remains hanging from the edge of the orifice.

The young Bugs, pretty little snow-white creatures, are gambolling

nimbly amidst the untenanted pots. I always come too late; what I

wanted to see by sunlight is over.

As I suspected, the opening of the lid is effected in the darkness of

the night. Alas, for want of sufficient light the solution of the

problem which interests me so greatly will escape me! The Reduvius will

keep her secret; I shall see nothing.... But yes, I do see something;

for perseverance has unexpected resources. A week full of failures has

already gone by, when, unexpectedly, in the brilliant light of nine

o’clock in the morning, a few late-comers suddenly begin to open their

boxes. Had the house caught fire just then, I doubt whether I should

have stirred a limb. The sight held me rooted to the floor. Let the

reader judge for himself.

Unprovided with the thread-like rivets employed by the Pentatoma, the

Reduvius’ lid adheres to the shell by its mere position and a perfect

fit. I see it lifting at one side and hinging on the other with a

slowness that defies the magnifying powers of the lens. What is

happening in the egg seems to be a long and laborious process. But the

lid opens wider; and through the chink I see something glistening. This

is an iridescent pellicle, which protrudes, and, as it does so, pushes

back the lid. Now a spherical blister emerges from the shell, gradually

growing larger, like a soap-bubble blown from a straw. Pushed farther

and farther back by the expansion of this bladder, the lid falls off.

Then the bomb explodes: that is to say, the capsule, inflated beyond

the limits of its resistance, bursts open at the top. This envelope, an

extremely thin membrane, usually adheres to the edge of the orifice,

where it forms a high white rim. At other times the explosion detaches

it and shoots it out of the shell. Under these conditions it is a

delicate goblet, hemispherical, with torn edges, and with its lower

part continued by a fine, twisted stem.

It is finished; the thoroughfare is open. The tiny insect can now

emerge by bursting through the pellicle caught in the opening, or by

dislodging it; or it may find an absolutely free passage, when the

burst bladder has left the egg. It is all simply miraculous. To escape

from his box, the Pentatoma invented the three-ribbed mitre and the

hydraulic ram; the Reduvius has invented the explosive bomb. The first

goes to work gently; the second, a brutal dynamiter, blows the roof off

his prison with a bomb.

With what explosive, and how is the liberating shell loaded? At the

moment of rupture nothing visible bursts from the bubble; nothing

liquid moistens the torn edge. The contents, therefore, were assuredly

gaseous. The rest escapes me. One observation, which I was unable to

repeat, is not enough in this delicate matter. Reducing it to mere

probabilities I will propose the following explanation:

The tiny animal is wrapped in a tightly closed tunic which embraces it

snugly. This is a temporary skin, a sheath which the new-born larva

will shed on leaving the egg. This sheath is connected with an

appendage, a capsule placed under the lid. The twisted stem hanging

from the burst bubble when it is shot out of the egg represents the

communicating duct.

Very slowly, as the little creature takes shape and grows, this

bladder-like reservoir receives the products of the respiration which

takes place under the cover of the tunic or “overall.” Instead of

dispersing outside, through the egg-shell, the carbonic acid gas

incessantly resulting from the vital process of oxidization accumulates

in this sort of gasometer, filling and distending it and pressing upon

the lid. When the little Bug is mature and on the point of hatching,

the increased activity of its respiration completes the inflation,

which has doubtless been proceeding ever since the earliest development

of the germ. At last, yielding to the increasing pressure of the

gas-filled capsule, the lid becomes unfastened. The Chick in its shell

has its air-chamber: the young Reduvius has its bomb of carbonic acid

gas: it releases itself by breathing.

The singular hatching-processes of the Pentatoma and the Reduvius are

obviously not isolated cases. The egg with a removable lid must be

employed by other Hemiptera; it may even be that this is a fairly

general device. Each genus has its own methods of opening its box, its

own system of springs and levers. What a mechanism to find in the egg

of a Bug, and how fertile in surprises! What an interesting harvest to

be reaped, with patience and a good pair of eyes!

Let us now watch the little Reduvius’ emergence. The lid fell off a few

moments ago. The tiny insect, white all over, comes forth, tightly

swaddled. The tip of its abdomen still remains within the opening,

which, with its rim of skin, the remnant of the bomb, serves it as a

supporting girdle. It struggles, swaying to and fro and leaning

backwards. This gymnastic exercise, increasing the creature’s

flexibility, is intended to undo the swaddling-clothes at the seams.

Sleeves, breeches, gaiters, shirt-front, cap: little by little the

whole is torn off, not without effort on the fettered pigmy’s part; it

is all cast aside and disappears in tatters. Behold the new-born insect

at liberty! It skips away to some distance from the egg. With its long,

fine, waving antennæ it interrogates space, enquiring into this mighty

world. Often, when the lid still adheres to some point of the opening,

it carries this bit away with it, on its back or its rump. You would

think it was going to the wars, bearing the umbo of antiquity, the

round, convex buckler. What does it want with this armour? Has it

seized upon it as a means of defence? Not at all. The cover of the

beaker happened to come into contact with it and at once stuck to it,

even firmly, for nothing short of the approaching moult will detach the

disk. This detail tells us that the little creature exudes a fluid

capable of acting as an adhesive in respect of any light objects

encountered on its passage—with what results we shall presently see.

With shield on back or without this panoply, standing high on its legs

and sporting a long pair of horns, the new-born insect crosses the

threshold of the egg; it roams about in sudden fits and starts,

presenting the appearance of a minute Spider. Two days later, before

taking any food, it undergoes a moult. The gormandizer, once he has

eaten his fill, undoes a button to make room for the belated dainties

concluding the meal. The Bug, who has as yet eaten nothing, splits his

coat from top to bottom, throws it away, and puts on a new skin. He

even changes his belly before sitting down to table. He used to wear a

short, stumpy abdomen; he now has a plump, round paunch. The time has

come for feasting.

A restaurant-keeper with no experience of the proper bill of fare, what

shall I provide? I remember a passage in Linnæus [63] touching the

Reduvius. The master says:

“Consumit cimices lectularios huius larva, horrida, personata.” “Its

horrid, masked larva sucks the Bed-bugs.”

This game seems to me out of proportion for the moment: the little

creatures in my jars, weak and tiny as they are, would never dare to

tackle such a quarry. There is another objection: the moment I want

Bugs, I am unlikely to find any. Let us try something else.

The adult has eclectic tastes; it hunts the most varied prey. The larva

might well do likewise. I offer Midges. They are absolutely refused. In

the garret whence my flock originated, what could they have found that

was easily obtained, without scuffling, so dangerous at that tender

age? They would have found tallow, bones, hides, and nothing else. Let

us give them tallow.

This time all goes well. My little creatures settle down on the fatty

substance, driving their suckers into it, drinking deeply of the

stinking olein, and then retire to digest their meal in the sand,

wherever they please. They thrive. I see them growing from day to day.

In a fortnight they are plump, and, what is more, disguised beyond

recognition. Their whole bodies, including the legs, are encrusted with

sand.

This mineral bark began to form directly after the moult. The little

creatures became speckled with earthy particles, thinly scattered at

random. At present the envelope is continuous. Let matters take their

course, and this wrap will become a sordid overall. Then the larva will

really deserve the epithets which Linnæus bestows upon it: horrida,

personata, the horrible insect that dons a mask and wears a dusty

domino.

Should it occur to us to regard this tatter-demalion costume as an

intentional piece of work, a ruse de guerre, a means of dissimulation

whereby to approach its prey, we may undeceive ourselves: the Reduvius

does not industriously make itself an overcoat; nor does it wear one

with the object of concealing itself. It all happens of itself, without

any sort of art, like the mechanism whose secret was revealed to us by

the lid of the egg, worn as a buckler. The insect exudes a certain

unctuous humour, derived perhaps from the tallow on which it feeds. To

this varnish, the dust through which it passes adheres without any

further trouble on the insect’s part. The Reduvius does not dress

itself; it dirties itself; it turns into a pellet of dust, a walking

bit of filth, because it emits a sticky sweat.

One word more as to its diet. Linnæus, obtaining his information I know

not where, makes the Reduvius our auxiliary against the Bed-bug. Since

then, the books, monotonously echoing one another, have repeated the

eulogy; it is accepted as a tradition that the Masked Reduvius makes

war upon our nocturnal bloodsucker. This would certainly constitute a

magnificent claim on our gratitude. But is it really the truth? I take

the liberty of rebelling against tradition. That the Reduvius is

sometimes found slaying Bed-bugs is very likely: my own captives were

satisfied with Forest-bugs. They accepted them, however, without

clamouring for them; and they readily dispensed with them, seeming to

prefer Locusts or any other insects.

Let us not then hasten to generalize and to look upon the Reduvius as a

licensed consumer of the stinking pest of our beds. I see an important

objection to this special vocation. Comparatively large in size, the

Reduvius could not slip into the narrow chinks that shelter the

Bed-bug. A fortiori, to track the Bed-bug to its lair is impracticable

for the larva, hampered by its overcoat of dust, unless it invade our

beds at the time when the other is running over us and selecting its

morsel. Nothing justifies our presuming this intimacy with the sleeper;

no one, that I know of, has surprised the Reduvius or its larva in the

act of investigating our beds.

The masked larva does not deserve to be extolled for a few accidental

captures. Its diet is quite different from what Linnæus tells us and

the compilers keep on repeating. In its infancy it feeds on fatty

matters, as my rearing-experiments prove. When it grows big it varies

its victuals with insects, of no matter what order, as does the adult.

For it a butcher’s garret is an abode of bliss, where it finds a supply

of fats, and, later, Flesh-flies, Dermestes, and other insects that

batten on dead things. In the dark and ill-swept corners of our houses

it gleans the particles of fat that fall from our kitchen-table; it

catches unawares the drowsy Fly, the small, homeless Spider. This is

enough to ensure its welfare.

Here is one more tradition to be deleted from our books, without much

injury, however, to the insect’s reputation. If the Masked Bug ceases

to appear in history as the executioner of the Bed-bug, it will

henceforth cut a more respectable figure as the inventor of the box

that is opened by the explosion of a bomb.

CHAPTER III

THE TEREBINTH-LOUSE: THE GALLS

For curious methods of generation, the Plant-lice bear the palm.

Nowhere shall we find anything to beat them unless we pry into the

secrets of the sea. We must not look to them for remarkable feats of

instinct. The humble, round-bellied Lice are incapable of such

achievements; to these stay-at-homes the lifting of a foot spells an

excess of emancipation. But they will tell us by what attempts,

bewildering in their energy and variety, the universal law that governs

the transmission of life has come into being.

I shall consult the Terebinth-lice by preference. They are near

neighbours of mine, a condition essential to frequent visits; they

practise an industry, which is a not uninteresting addition; and they

are crowded into sealed enclosures where we can follow the progress of

the family without too much confusion.

The shrub that feeds them, the terebinth, or turpentine-tree, abounds

on the Sérignan hills. It is sensitive to the cold, a lover of stony

wastes scorched by the sun. Its insignificant flowers are succeeded by

pretty bunches of little berries, first pink, then blue, smelling of

turpentine and beloved by the Redstart when migrating in autumn.

Any one seeing it for the first time, unless conversant with its

history, might think that it bore yet another crop of fruit, quite

different from that of the berries. On the tips of the boughs, singly

or in bunches, are certain twisted horns, a fairly good imitation of

certain pimentos, if the coral-red of maturity were replaced by a

straw-yellow washed with rose. What is more, mimic apricots, fresher

and more satiny than those of our orchards, are seen hanging from the

leaves. Tempted by appearances, we open these deceptive productions.

Horror! The contents consist of myriads of Lice, swarming about in the

midst of a floury dust.

Pilgrims to the Holy Land tell us that on certain bushes in the

neighbourhood of Sodom beautiful-looking apples may be gathered, which

are full of ashes within. The pretty apricots and cornute pimentos of

the terebinth-tree are the apples of Sodom, the Dead Sea fruit. Beneath

an attractive exterior, they too contain nothing but ashes, live ashes,

a wriggling whirl of dusty vermin. These are excrescences, galls, in

which the opulent family of the Plant-lice lives isolated from the

outer world.

To follow the progress of these strange productions I needed a

terebinth which I could inspect often and in comfort. I happen to have

one a few steps from my door. When I was stocking the enclosure with a

certain amount of woody vegetation, I conceived the happy thought of

planting a terebinth. A profitable tree, yielding acceptable fruit,

would have died in this ungrateful soil; but this, which is good for

nothing but firewood, is prospering excellently. It has grown into a

magnificent specimen; and year after year it never fails to be covered

with galls. So here I am, the fortunate possessor of a tree full of

Lice. Let us call it by its Provençal name: lou Petelin, or lou

Pesouious, the lousy one.

Scarcely a day passes but I give it a glance, attracted as I am by the

daily happenings in the enclosure. Let us examine it closely. The

“lousy one” has its merits: it is the depository of interesting

secrets. In winter it is bare. With the foliage the wigwams of Lice

have disappeared, though towards the end of the summer they were

weighing it down with their numbers. Nothing is left but the

horn-shaped shells, now black and dilapidated ruins.

What has become of the vast population of the bush? How will it recover

possession of its terebinth? In vain I inspect the bark of the trunk

and branches and twigs: I see nothing capable of explaining the coming

invasion. Nowhere are there any lice in a state of lethargy, nowhere

any eggs awaiting the spring hatching. Nor are there any in the

neighbourhood, nor, in particular, in the heap of dead leaves rotting

at the foot of the tree. Yet the tiny creature cannot come from a

distance: a mere atom, as I see it in imagination, does not go

wandering across country. It is certainly on the tree that feeds it;

but where?

One day in January, weary of my futile search, it occurs to me to strip

off, in shreds, a lichen, the Wall Parmelia, which here and there

carpets thinly with its yellow rosettes the base and the thicker

branches of my terebinth. I examine my harvest through the lens, in my

study. What is this?

A magnificent discovery! In my scrap of lichen, no larger than a

finger-nail, I discover a world. On the inner surface, in the winding

crevices between the scales, are encrusted vast numbers of tiny red

bodies barely a millimetre [64] in length. Some of them are entire and

oval in shape; some, truncated and empty, display open pouches with

pointed ends. All are plainly segmented.

Can it be that I have before my eyes the Louse’s eggs, of which some

are old and empty, while others are recent and contain their germ? This

idea is soon disposed of: an egg has not this segmentation like that of

an insect’s abdomen. Here is a more significant fact: a head and

antennæ are visible in front, while legs may be seen underneath; the

whole is dry and brittle. These specks, accordingly, once lived and

walked. Are they dead now? No, for when I crush them with the point of

a needle traces of moisture gush forth, a sign of a living organism.

Only the shell is dead.

The tiny creature, capable at first of movement, endowed with legs and

antennæ, wandered for some time under cover of the lichen; then, before

it became inert, it settled down on a suitable spot. There it turned

its shrivelled skin, now an amber-coloured pellicle, into a mummy’s

sarcophagus in which the organism makes ready for a new life. When the

time comes, we shall discover the origin of this curious object, which

was an animal and now deserves the name of egg.

What my own familiar terebinth has shown me in the enclosure, I ought

to see repeated in the open country. Sure enough, I do see it; but this

time it is not under lichens, for the bark of the tree is most often

bare. There is no lack of other shelter. Some twigs of terebinth have

been cut by the clumsy bill-hooks of the brushwood-gleaners, leaving a

ragged section. The wood is split into deep fissures; the loose bark

comes away in tatters. Once dry, these ruins are a mine of wealth.

In the narrowest crevices, in the cracks of the wood and under the

splintered bark, there are great numbers of the atoms that interest me

so greatly. To judge by their colour there are at least two kinds. Some

are red; the others are black. These latter were scarce under the

lichens on my terebinth; here they predominate largely. I collect some

of both kinds. And now we must have patience. I have hopes that the

answer to the riddle will be found.

Mid-April comes and the little glass tubes in which I store my animal

seeds are full of life. The black germs are the first to hatch; a

fortnight later the red ones follow suit. The epidermic boxes undergo a

process of self-mutilation, the front part falling off and leaving a

gaping void, without other change of form. A minute animal comes out of

them, a black speck in which the lens recognizes a very shapely little

Louse, bearing the regulation sucker pressed against its thorax. My

first thoughts were correct: the puzzling little red and black bodies

found under the lichens and in the cracks of dead wood were really

Louse-seeds.

And these seeds, judging by their husks, endowed with a head and legs,

are little insects, first active and then inert and converted into

germs. The original, almost integral substance is reborn in another

shape. The little creature’s skin has provided the shell, the segmented

box, a jet-black or amber-yellow pellicule; the rest is concentrated

into an egg.

The time has not come to observe the singular creature’s origin and

behaviour; chronological order forbids. Let us return to the vermin

issuing from these germs. They are tiny, tiny little black Lice, with

flat abdomens, plainly segmented and as it were granular. Assiduous

observation through the lens shows them to be dusted with a touch of

blue-grey powder like the bloom on a plum. Trotting with little steps

about their spacious prison, the glass tube, they seem uneasy. What do

they want? What are they looking for? No doubt, a camping-ground on the

friendly tree.

I come to their assistance; I place in the tube a twig of terebinth

whose buds are beginning to open at the top of their scaly covering.

This is the thing they wanted. They climb up the twig, establish

themselves in the velvet that clothes the tips of the buds, and there

they settle, calm and satisfied.

Direct observations made on the terebinth are accompanied, pari passu,

by laboratory experiments. The little black Lice, rare on the 15th of

April, are numerous ten days later. On the tip of a single bud I count

over twenty of them; and most of the buds are colonized, or at least

those that are largest and farthest from the ground. The occupants

remain hidden in the scanty down of the nascent follicles whose tips

are barely emerging.

After a sojourn of some days, when the leaves begin to appear, each

insect makes for itself a private dwelling. It exploits, with its

sucker, a leaflet whose tip turns purple, swells up and curls over,

and, bringing its edges together, forms a flat pocket with an irregular

opening. Each of these pockets, about the size of a grain of hemp-seed,

is a tent in which a black Plant-louse takes up her residence: one

only, never more.

What will the little Louse do in her isolated retreat? Feed, and, above

all, multiply. If one is to become legion a few months hence, matters

brook no delay. Here, then, there is no father, a mere superfluity and

waste of time. So many Lice, so many mothers; no more is needed. Nor is

there any laying, for the egg would take too long to develop. Nothing

short of direct procreation, unfettered by any preliminaries, is

acceptable to the Louse’s ardour. The young are born alive and like

their mother, except in point of size.

As soon as they are brought into the world, they insert their suckers,

absorb a little sap, increase in size, and in a few days become capable

of continuing the race by the same rapid method, without fathers. Until

the end of the annual colonization the offspring, including the

remotest degrees of descent, will maintain the process of genesis by

direct parturition and will know no other method. When the time has

come for a more convenient examination, we shall return to this amazing

method, which completely upsets our ideas.

On the 1st of May I open some of the purple swellings which have formed

on the tips of the burgeoning leaflets. Sometimes I find the maker of

the capsule alone, just as she was on the tips of the buds; sometimes

she has undergone a moult and is accompanied by the beginnings of a

family. After discarding her black slough, she has become greenish,

corpulent and lightly dusted with flour. Her youngsters, at the moment

one or at most two, are brown, slender and bare-skinned.