THE PSYCHES: THE CASES
The hatching of the eggs takes place in the first fortnight of July.
The little grubs measure about one twenty-fifth of an inch. Their head
and the upper part of the first thoracic segment are a glossy black,
the next two segments brownish and the rest of the body a pale amber.
Sharp, lively little creatures, who run about with short, quick steps,
they swarm all over the spongy, hairy tissue resulting from the
cast-off clothing of the eggs.
The books tell me that the little Psyches begin by eating up their
mother: a loathsome banquet for which the said books must accept
responsibility. I see nothing of the sort; and I do not even understand
how the idea arose. The mother bequeaths to her sons her case, whose
straws are searched for wadding, the material of the first coat; out of
her chrysalid slough and her skin she makes them a two-fold shelter for
the hatching-time; with her down she prepares a defensive barricade for
them and a place wherein to wait before emerging. Thus all is given,
all spent with a view to the future. Save for some thin, dry strips
which my lens can only with difficulty distinguish, there is nothing
left that could provide a cannibal feast for so numerous a family.
No, my little Psyches, you do not eat your mother. In vain do I watch
you: never, either to clothe or to feed himself, does any one of you
lay a tooth upon the remains of the deceased. The maternal skin is left
untouched, as are those other insignificant relics, the layer of
muscular tissue and the network of air-ducts. The sack left behind by
the chrysalis also remains intact.
The time comes to quit the natal wallet. An outlet has been contrived
long beforehand, saving the youngsters from committing any act of
violence against what was once their mother. There is no sacrilegious
cutting to be done with the shears; the door opens of itself.
When she was a wriggling speck of sausage, the mother’s front segments
were remarkably translucent, forming a contrast with the rest of the
body. This was very probably a sign of a less dense and less tough
texture than elsewhere. The sign is not misleading. The dry gourd to
which the mother is now reduced has for a neck those diaphanous rings,
which, as they withered, became extremely fragile. Does this neck, this
operculum fall of its own accord, or is it pushed off by the pigmies
impatient to get away? I do not know for certain. This, however, I can
say, that blowing on it is enough to make it drop off.
In anticipation therefore of the emergence, an exceedingly easy and
perhaps even spontaneous method of decapitation is prepared in the
mother’s lifetime. To manufacture a delicate neck for yourself so that
you may be easily beheaded at the proper time and thus leave the way
free to the youngsters is an act of devotion in which the most
unconscious maternal affection stands sublimely revealed. That
miserable maggot, that sausage Moth, scarce able to crawl and yet so
clear-sighted where the future is concerned, staggers the mind of any
one who knows how to think.
The brood emerge from the natal wallet through the window just opened
by the fall of the head. The chrysalid sack, the second wrapper,
presents no obstacle; it has remained open since the adult Psyche left
it. Next comes the mass of eiderdown, the heap of fluff of which the
mother stripped herself. Here the little caterpillars stop. Much more
spaciously and comfortably lodged than in the bag whence they have
come, some take a rest, others bustle about, exercise themselves in
walking. All pick up strength in preparation for their exodus into the
daylight.
They do not stay long amid this luxury. Gradually, as they gain vigour,
they come out and spread over the surface of the case. Work begins at
once, a very urgent work, that of the wardrobe. The first mouthfuls
will come afterwards, when we are dressed.
Montaigne, when putting on the cloak which his father had worn before
him, used a touching expression. He said:
“I dress myself in my father.”
The young Psyches in the same way dress themselves in their mother:
they cover themselves with the clothes left behind by the deceased,
they scrape from it the wherewithal to make themselves a cotton frock.
The material employed is the pith of the little stalks, especially of
the pieces which, split lengthwise, are more easily stripped of their
contents. The grub first finds a spot to suit it. Having done so, it
gleans, it planes with its mandibles. Thus a superbly white wadding is
extracted from old logs.
The manner of beginning the garment is worth noting. The tiny creature
employs as judicious a method as any which our own industry could hope
to discover. The wadding is collected in infinitesimal pellets. How are
these little particles to be fixed as and when they are detached by the
shears of the mandibles? The manufacturer needs a support, a base; and
this support cannot be obtained on the caterpillar’s own body, for any
adherence would be seriously embarrassing and would hamper freedom of
movement. The difficulty is overcome very cleverly. Scraps of plush are
gathered and by degrees fastened to one another with threads of silk.
This forms a sort of rectilinear garland in which the particles
collected swing from a common rope. When these preparations are deemed
sufficient, the little creature passes the garland round its waist, at
about the third segment of the thorax, so as to leave its six legs
free; then it ties the two ends with a bit of silk. The result is a
girdle, generally incomplete, but soon completed with other scraps
fastened to the silk ribbon that carries everything.
This girdle is the base of the work, the support. Henceforth, to
lengthen the piece, to enlarge it into the perfect garment, the grub
has only to fix, always at the fore-edge, with the aid of its
spinnerets, now at the top, now at the bottom or side, the scraps of
pith which the mandibles never cease extracting. Nothing could be
better thought out than this initial garland laid out flat and then
buckled like a belt around the loins.
Once this base is laid, the weaving-loom is in full swing. The piece
woven is first a tiny string around the waist; next, by the addition of
fresh pellets, always at the fore-edge, it grows into a scarf, a
waistcoat, a short jacket and lastly a sack, which gradually makes its
way backwards, not of itself, but through the action of the weaver, who
slips forward in the part of the case already made. In a few hours, the
garment is completed. It is by that time a conical hood, a cloak of
magnificent whiteness and finish.
We now know all about it. On leaving the maternal hut, without
searching, without distant expeditions which would be so dangerous at
that age, the little Psyche finds in the tender beams of the roof the
wherewithal to clothe himself. He is spared the perils of roaming in a
state of nudity. When he leaves the house, he will be quite warm,
thanks to the mother, who takes care to instal her family in the old
case and gives it choice materials to work with.
If the grub-worm were to drop out of the hovel, if some gust of wind
swept him to a distance, most often the poor mite would be lost.
Ligneous straws, rich in pith, dry and retted to a turn, are not to be
found everywhere. It would mean the impossibility of any clothing and,
in that dire poverty, an early death. But, if suitable materials are
encountered, equal in quality to those bequeathed by the mother, how is
it that the exile is unable to make use of them? Let us look into this.
I segregate a few new-born grubs in a glass tube and give them for
their materials some split pieces of straw, picked from among the old
stalks of a sort of dandelion, Pterotheca nemausensis. Though robbed of
the inheritance of the maternal manor, the grubs seem very well
satisfied with my bits. Without the least hesitation, they scrape out
of them a superb white pith and make it into a delicious cloak, much
handsomer than that which they would have obtained with the ruins of
the native house, this latter cloak being always more or less flawed
with darker materials, whose colour has been impaired by long exposure
to the air. On the other hand, the Nîmes dandelion, a relic of last
spring, has its central part, which I myself lay bare, a spotless
white; and the cotton nightcap achieves the very perfection of
whiteness.
I obtain an even better result with rounds of sorghum-pith taken from
the kitchen-broom. This time, the work has glittering crystalline
points and looks like a thing built of grains of sugar. It is my
manufacturers’ masterpiece.
These two successes authorize me to vary the raw material still
further. In the absence of new-born caterpillars, who are not always at
my disposal, I employ grubs which I have undressed, that is to say,
which I have taken out of their caps. To these divested ones I give, as
the only thing to work upon, a strip of paper free from paste and easy
to pick to pieces, in short, a piece of blotting-paper.
Here again there is no hesitation. The grubs lustily scrape this
surface, new to them though it be, and make themselves a paper coat of
it. Cadet Roussel, [28] of famous memory, had a coat of similar stuff,
but much less fine and silky. My paper-clad charges are so well-pleased
with their materials that they scorn their native case, when it is
afterwards placed at their disposal, and continue to scrape lint from
the industrial product.
Others are given nothing in their tube, but are able to get at the cork
that closes the glass dwelling-house. This is enough. The undraped ones
hasten to scrape the cork, to break it into atoms and out of these to
make themselves a granulated frock, as faultlessly elegant as though
their race had always made use of this material. The novelty of the
stuff, employed perhaps for the first time, has made no change in the
cut of the coat.
To sum up, they accept any vegetable matter that is dry, light and not
too resistant. Would they behave likewise towards animal materials and
especially mineral materials, on condition that these are of a suitable
thinness? I take a Great Peacock’s wing, left over from my experiments
in the nuptial telegraphy of this Moth, [29] and cut from it a strip on
which I place, at the bottom of a tube, two little caterpillars
stripped of their clothing. The two prisoners have nothing else at
their disposal. Any drapery that they want must be got out of this
scaly expanse.
They hesitate for a long time in the presence of that strange carpet.
In twenty-four hours’ time, one of the caterpillars has started no work
and seems resolved to let himself die, naked as he is. The other,
stouter-hearted, or perhaps less injured by the brutal
stripping-process, explores the slip for a little while and at last
resolves to make use of it. Before the day is over, he has clothed
himself in grey velvet out of the Great Peacock’s scales. Considering
the delicacy of the materials, the work is exquisitely correct.
Let us go a step farther in our explorations. For the soft, yielding
wadding collected from a plant, or the down gleaned from the wing of a
Moth, we will substitute rough stone. In their final state, I know, the
Psyches’ cases are often laden with grains of sand and earthy
particles; but these are accidental bricks, which have been
inadvertently touched by the spinneret and incorporated unintentionally
in the thatch. The delicate creatures know too well the drawbacks of a
pebbly pillow to seek the support of stone. Mineral matter is
distasteful to them; and it is mineral matter that now has to be worked
like wool.
True, I select such stones in my collection as are least out of keeping
with the feeble powers of my grubs. I possess a specimen of flaky
hematite. At the merest touch of a hair-pencil it breaks into atoms
almost as minute as the dust which a Butterfly’s wing leaves on our
fingers. On a bed of this material, which glitters like a steel filing,
I establish four young caterpillars extracted from their clothing. I
foresee a check in this experiment and consequently increase the number
of my subjects.
It is as I thought. The day passes and the four caterpillars remain
bare. Next day, however, one, one alone, decides to clothe himself. His
work is a tiara with metallic facets, in which the light plays with
flashes of every colour of the rainbow. It is very rich, very
sumptuous, but mightily heavy and cumbrous. Walking becomes laborious
under that load of metal. Even so must a Byzantine emperor have
progressed at ceremonies of state, after donning his gold-worked
dalmatic.
Poor little creature! More sensible than man, you did not select that
ridiculous magnificence of your own free will; it was I who forced it
on you. Here, to make amends, is a disk of sorghum-pith. Fling off your
proud tiara, thrust it from you quickly and place in its stead a cotton
night-cap, which is much healthier. This is done on the second day.
The Psyche has his favourite materials when starting as a manufacturer:
a vegetable lint collected from any ligneous scrap well softened by the
air, a lint usually supplied by the old roof of the maternal hut. In
the absence of the regulation fabric, he is able to make use of animal
velvet, in particular of the scaly fluff of a Moth. In case of
necessity, he does not shrink from acts of sheer madness: he weaves
mineral matter, so urgent is his need to clothe himself.
This need outweighs that of nourishment. I take a young caterpillar
from his grazing-ground, a leaf of very hairy hawkweed which, after
many attempts, I have found to suit him as food because of its green
blade and as wool because of its white fleece. I take him, I say, from
his refectory and leave him to fast for a couple of days. Then I strip
him and put him back on his leaf. And I see him, unmindful of eating,
in spite of his long fast, first labouring to make himself a new coat
by collecting the hairs of the hawkweed. His appetite will be satisfied
afterwards.
Is he then so susceptible to cold? We are in the midst of the dog-days.
The sun shoots down a fiery torrent that brings the wild concert of the
Cicadæ up to fever-pitch. In the baking heat of the study where I am
questioning my animals, I have flung off hat and necktie and am working
in my shirt-sleeves; and, in this oven, what the Psyche clamours for
is, above all things, a warm covering. Well, little shiverer, I will
satisfy you!
I expose him to the direct rays of the sun, on the window-ledge. This
time, it is too much of a good thing; I have gone beyond all bounds.
The sun-scorched one wriggles about, flourishes his abdomen, always a
sign of discomfort. But the making of the hawkweed cassock is not
suspended on this account; on the contrary, it is pursued more
hurriedly than ever. Could this be because of the excessive light? Is
not the cotton-wool bag a retreat wherein the caterpillar isolates
himself, sheltering from the importunities of broad daylight, and
gently digests and sleeps? Let us get rid of the light, while retaining
a warm temperature.
After a preliminary stripping, the little caterpillars are now lodged
in a cardboard box, which I place in the sunniest corner of my window.
The temperature here is well over 100° F. No matter: the swan’s-down
sack is remade at a sitting of a few hours. Tropical heat and the quiet
that goes with darkness have made no difference in the insect’s habits.
Neither the degree of heat nor the degree of light explains the
pressing need of raiment. Where are we to seek the reason for that
hurry to get clad? I can see none save a presentiment of the future.
The Psyche caterpillar has the winter before him. He knows nothing of a
common shelter in a silken purse, of cabins among close-touching
leaves, of underground cells, of retreats under old cracked bark, of
hairy roofs, of cocoons, in short of the different methods employed by
other caterpillars to protect themselves against the severity of the
weather. He has to spend the winter exposed to the inclemencies of the
air. This peril causes his particular talent.
He builds himself a roof whose imbricated and diverging stalks will
allow cold dews and drops of melted snow to trickle away at a distance,
when the case is fixed and hanging vertically. Under this covering, he
weaves a thick silk lining, which will make a soft mattress and a
rampart against the effects of the cold. Once these precautions are
taken, the winter may come and the north wind rage: the Psyche is
sleeping peacefully in his hut.
But all this is not improvised as the stormy season approaches. It is a
delicate work which takes time to carry out. All his life-long the
caterpillar labours at it, improving it, adding to it, strengthening it
incessantly. And, in order to acquire greater skill, he begins his
apprenticeship at the moment when he leaves the egg. As preliminary
practice for the thick overcoat of full-grown age, he tries his hand on
cotton capes. Even so does the Pine Processionary, as soon as hatched,
weave first delicate tents, then gauzy cupolas, as harbingers of the
mighty wallet in which the community will make its home. Both alike are
harassed from the day of their birth by the presentiment of the future;
they start life by binding themselves apprentices to the trade that is
to safeguard them one day.
No, the Psyche is not more sensitive to cold than any other
smooth-skinned caterpillar; he is a creature of foresight. Deprived in
winter of the shelters granted to the others, he prepares himself, from
his birth, for the building of a home that will be his salvation and
practises for it by making fripperies of wadding suited to his
strength. He foresees the rigours of winter during the blazing
dog-days.
They are now all clad, my young caterpillars, numbering nearly a
thousand. They wander restlessly in large glass receptacles, closed
with a sheet of glass. What do you seek, little ones, swinging your
pretty, snow-white cloaks as you go? Food, of course. After all that
fatigue, you need refreshment. Despite your numbers, you will not be
too heavy a burden on my resources: you can manage with so little! But
what do you ask for? You certainly do not count on me for your
supplies. In the open fields you would have found victuals to your
liking much more easily than I can hope to find them for you. Since my
wish to know all about you places you in my charge, I have a duty which
I must observe: that of feeding you. What do you want?
The part of Providence is a very difficult one to play. The purveyor of
foodstuffs, thinking of the morrow, taking his precautions so that the
home may be always more or less supplied, performs the most deserving
but also the most laborious of functions. The little ones wait
trustingly, persuaded that things happen of themselves, while he
anxiously resorts to every kind of ingenuity and trouble, wondering
whether the right thing will come. Ah, how well long practice has
taught me to know the trade, with all its worries and all its joys!
Behold me to-day the Providence of a thousand nurselings thrust upon me
by my studies. I try a little of everything. The tender leaves of the
elm appear to suit. If I serve them up one day, I find them next
morning nibbled on the surface, in small patches. Tiny grains of
impalpable black dust, scattered here and there, tell me that the
intestines have been at work. This gives me a moment of satisfaction
which will be readily understood by any breeder of a herd whose diet is
unknown. The hope of success gains strength: I know how to feed my
vermin. Have I discovered the best method at the first attempt? I dare
not think so.
I continue therefore to vary the fare, but the results hardly come up
to my wishes. The flock refuses my assorted green stuff and even ends
by taking a dislike to the elm-leaves. I am beginning to believe that I
have failed utterly, when a happy inspiration occurs to me. I have
recognized among the bits that go to form the case a few fragments of
the mouse-ear hawkweed (Hieracium pilosella). So the Psyche frequents
that plant. Why should he not browse it? Let us try.
The mouse-ear displays its little round flowers in profusion in a stony
field just beside my house, at the foot of the wall where I have so
often found Psyche-cases hanging. I gather a handful and distribute it
among my different folds. This time the food-problem is solved. The
Psyches forthwith settle in solid masses on the hairy leaves and nibble
at them greedily in small patches, in which the epidermis of the other
surface remains untouched.
We will leave them to their grazing, with which they seem quite
satisfied, and ask ourselves a certain question relating to
cleanliness. How does the little Psyche get rid of his digestive
refuse? Remember that he is enclosed in a sack. One dare not entertain
the thought of ordure ejected and accumulating at the far end of the
dazzling white plush cap. Filth cannot dwell under so elegant a
covering. How is the sordid evacuation managed?
Despite the fact that it ends in a conical point, in which the lens
reveals no break of continuity, the sack is not closed at the hinder
end. Its method of manufacture, by means of a waistband whose fore-edge
increases in dimensions in proportion as the rear-edge is pushed
farther back, proves this sufficiently. The hinder end becomes pointed
simply owing to the shrinking of the material, which contracts of
itself at the part where the caterpillar’s decreasing diameter no
longer distends it. There is thus at the point a permanent hole whose
lips remain closed. The caterpillar has only to go a little way back
and the stuff expands, the hole widens, the road is open and the
excretions fall to the ground. On the other hand, so soon as the
caterpillar takes a step forward into his case, the rubbish-shoot
closes of itself. It is a very simple and very ingenious mechanism, as
good as anything contrived by our seamstresses to cope with the
shortcomings of a boy’s first pair of breeches.
Meanwhile the grub grows and its tunic continues to fit it, is neither
too large nor too small, but just the right size. How is this done? If
the text-books were to be credited, I might expect to see the
caterpillar split his sheath lengthwise when it became too tight and
afterwards enlarge it by means of a piece woven between the edges of
the rent. That is what our tailors do; but it is not the Psyches’
method at all. They know something much better. They keep on working at
their coat, which is old at the back, new in front and always a perfect
fit for the growing body.
Nothing is easier than to watch the daily progress in size. A few
caterpillars have just made themselves a hood of sorghum-pith. The work
is perfectly beautiful; it might have been woven out of snow-flakes. I
isolate these smartly-dressed ones and give them as weaving-materials
some brown scales chosen from the softest parts that I can find in old
bark. Between morning and evening, the hood assumes a new appearance:
the tip of the cone is still a spotless white, but all the front part
is coarse drapery, very different in colouring from the original plush.
Next day, the sorghum felt has wholly disappeared and is replaced, from
one end of the cone to the other, by a frieze of bark.
I then take away the brown materials and put sorghum-pith in their
stead. This time the coarse, dark stuff retreats gradually towards the
top of the hood, while the soft, white stuff gains in width, starting
from the mouth. Before the day is over, the original elegant mitre will
be reconstructed entirely.
This alternation can be repeated as often as we please. Indeed, by
shortening each period of work, we can easily obtain, with the two
sorts of material, composite products, showing alternate light and dark
belts.
The Psyche, as you see, in no way follows the methods of our tailors,
with their piece taken out and another piece let in. In order to have a
coat always to his size, he never ceases working at it. The particles
collected are constantly being fixed just at the edge of the sack, so
that the new drapery increases progressively in dimensions, keeping
pace with the caterpillar’s growth. At the same time the old stuff
recedes, is driven back towards the tip of the cone. Here, through its
own springiness, it contracts and closes the muff. Any surplus matter
disintegrates, falls into shreds and gradually disappears as the insect
roams about and knocks against the things which it meets. The case, new
at the front and old at the back, is never too tight because it is
always being renewed.
After the very hot period of the year, there comes a moment when light
wraps are no longer seasonable. Autumnal rains threaten, followed by
winter frosts. It is time to make ourselves a thick great-coat with a
cape of thatch arranged in a series of waterproof tippets. It begins
with a great lack of accuracy. Straws of uneven length and bits of dry
leaves are fastened, with no attempt at order, behind the neck of the
sack, which must still retain its flexibility so as to allow the
caterpillar to bend freely in every direction.
Few as yet, rather short and placed anyhow, sometimes lengthways and
sometimes across, these untidy first logs of the roof will not
interfere with the final regularity of the building: they are destined
to disappear and will be pushed back and be driven out at last as the
sack grows in front.
Later on, when the pieces are longer and better-chosen, they are all
carefully laid longitudinally. The placing of a straw is done with
surprising quickness and dexterity. If the log which he has found suits
him, the caterpillar takes it between his legs and turns it round and
round. Gripping it with his mandibles by one end, as a rule he removes
a few morsels from this part and immediately fixes them to the neck of
the sack. His object in laying bare the raw and rough surfaces, to
which the silk will stick better, may be to obtain a firmer hold. Even
so the plumber gives a touch of the file at the point that is to be
soldered.
Then, by sheer strength of jaw, the caterpillar lifts his beam,
brandishes it in the air and, with a quick movement of his rump, lays
it on his back. The spinneret at once sets to work on the end caught.
And the thing is done: without any groping about or correcting, the log
is added to the others, in the direction required.
The fine days of autumn are spent in toil of this kind, performed
leisurely and intermittently, when the stomach is full. By the time
that the cold weather arrives, the house is ready. When the air is once
more warm, the Psyche resumes his walks abroad: he roams along the
paths, strolls over the friendly greensward, takes a few mouthfuls and
then, when the hour has come, prepares for his transformation by
hanging from the wall.
These springtime wanderings, long after the case is completely
finished, made me want to know if the caterpillar would be capable of
repeating his sack-weaving and roof-building operations. I take him out
of his case and place him, stark naked, on a bed of fine, dry sand. I
give him as materials to work with some old stalks of Nîmes dandelion,
cut up into sticks of the same length as the pieces that make the case.
The evicted insect disappears under the heap of ligneous straws and
hurriedly starts spinning, taking as pegs for its cords anything that
its lips encounter: the bed of sand underfoot, the canopy of twigs
overhead. So doing, it binds together, in extricable confusion, all the
pieces touched by the spinneret, long and short, light and heavy, at
random. In the centre of this tangled scaffolding, a work is pursued of
a quite different nature from that of hut-building. The caterpillar
weaves and does nothing else, not even attempting to assemble into a
proper roofing the materials of which he is able to dispose.
The Psyche owning a perfect case, when he resumes his activity with the
fine weather, scorns his old trade as an assembler of logs, a trade
practised so zealously during the previous summer. Now that his stomach
is satisfied and his silk-glands distended, he devotes his spare time
solely to improving the quilting of his case. The silky felt of the
interior is never thick or soft enough to please him. The thicker and
softer it is, the better for his own comfort during the process of
transformation and for the safety of his family afterwards.
Well, my knavish tricks have now robbed him of everything. Does he
perceive the disaster? Though the silk and timber at his disposal
permit, does he dream of rebuilding the shelter, so essential first to
his chilly back and secondly to his family, who will cut it up to make
their first home? Not a bit of it. He slips under the mass of twigs
where I let it fall and there begins to work exactly as he would have
done under normal conditions.
This shapeless roof and this sand on which the jumble of rafters are
lying now represent to the Psyche the walls of the regulation home;
and, without in any way modifying his labours to meet the exigencies of
the moment, the caterpillar upholsters the surfaces within his reach
with the same zest that he would have displayed in adding new layers to
the quilted lining which has disappeared. Instead of being pasted on
the proper wall, the present hangings come in contact with the rough
surface of the sand and the hopeless tangle of the straws; and the
spinner takes no notice.
The house is worse than ruined: it no longer exists. No matter: the
caterpillar continues his actual work; he loses sight of the real and
upholsters the imaginary. [30] And yet everything ought to apprise him
of the absence of any roofing. The sack with which he has managed to
cover himself, very skilfully for that matter, is lamentably flabby. It
sags and rumples at every movement of the insect’s body. Moreover, it
is made heavy with sand and bristles with spikes in every direction,
which catch in the dust of the road and make all progress impossible.
Thus anchored to the ground, the caterpillar wastes his strength in
efforts to shift his position. It takes him hours to make a start and
to move his cumbrous dwelling a fraction of an inch.
With his normal case, in which all the beams are imbricated from front
to back with scientific precision, he gets along very nimbly. His
collection of logs, all fixed in front and all free at the back, forms
a boat-shaped sledge which slips and glides through obstacles without
difficulty. But, though progress be easy, retreat is impracticable, for
each piece of the framework causes the thing to stop, owing to its free
end.
Well, the sack of my victim is covered with laths pointing this way and
that, just in the position in which they happened to be caught by the
spinneret, as it fastened its threads here and there, indiscriminately.
The bits in front are so many spurs which dig into the sand and
neutralize all efforts to advance; the bits at the side are rakes whose
resistance cannot be overcome. In such conditions, the insect is bound
to be stranded and to perish on the spot.
If I were advising the caterpillar, I should say:
“Go back to the art in which you excel; arrange your bundle neatly;
point the cumbrous pieces lengthwise, in an orderly fashion; do
something to your sack, which hangs too loosely; give it the necessary
stiffness with a few props to act as a busk; do now, in your distress,
what you knew so well how to do before; summon up your old
carpentering-talents and you will be saved.”
Useless advice! The time for carpentry is over. The hour has come for
upholstering; and he upholsters obstinately, padding a house which no
longer exists. He will perish miserably, cut up by the Ants, as the
result of his too-rigid instinct.
Many other instances have already told us as much. Like running water
which does not climb slopes and which does not flow back to its source,
the insect never retraces its actions. What is done is done and cannot
be recommenced. The Psyche, but now a clever carpenter, will die for
want of knowing how to fix a beam.