Insect Life: Souvenirs of a Naturalist

Part 1

INSECT LIFE SOUVENIRS OF A NATURALIST

J.-H. FABRE DOCTEUR ÈS SCIENCES ‘that inimitable observer.’—Charles Darwin

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY THE AUTHOR OF ‘MADEMOISELLE MORI’

WITH A PREFACE BY DAVID SHARP, M.A., F.R.S.

AND EDITED BY F. MERRIFIELD

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY M. PRENDERGAST PARKER

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON 1913

To the attentive eye the sight of industrial insects exhibiting the most refined art in their labours is a spectacle both strange and sublime. Human Reason is confounded by Instinct thus raised to the highest pitch of which Nature can offer an example, and the perturbation of intelligence increases on observing, patiently and minutely, the details of the life of those creatures most highly endowed with instinct.

E. Blanchard.

First Edition 1901. Reprinted 1913

PREFACE

This little volume introduces the work of a great French naturalist to the reader of English. Réaumur, another Frenchman, is the greatest naturalist devoting himself to the observation of insects the world has yet seen. His six quarto volumes—Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des insectes—were published between 1734 and 1742. J.-H. Fabre, who happily is still with us, is second only to Réaumur in this part of the great field of Natural History.

Though compatriots the two men are remarkably different in the nature of their genius. Réaumur, stately and slow, both discursive and diffuse. Fabre,—styled by Charles Darwin the immortal Fabre,—a most patient, indefatigable observer, ready to sacrifice everything to the carrying on of his work, but making deductions too rapidly from his observations, and taking a philosophical position from which he refuses to budge, even though he stand alone among the naturalists of this generation.

Fabre’s great merit is his graphic portraiture of the living insect as it really is. This proves to be very different from insect life as it is usually supposed to be by the uninstructed, and as it is only too frequently represented to be in books. In the volume now offered to the reader he is almost entirely concerned with the instinct of Hymenoptera, the highest of the insect world in this respect. His studies of this subject have been continued in several other volumes, and he has also included in the series the results of many years of observation of the habits of other and very different insects.

His philosophical position may be briefly stated to be a determined refusal to recognise evolution as a legitimate idea. In this we may think him wrong; but it must be admitted that his views form a valuable antithesis to those of the many evolutionists who take the position that all that remains for the naturalist to do is to repeat the words Natural Selection and variation, and declare that thereby we understand the Cosmos.

Fabre is a difficult writer to translate. Probably no one has ever written on this subject with equal brilliancy and vivacity. But he is the most Gallic of Frenchmen. If his words are literally translated, they scarcely make English; if freely translated, the charm of his diction is too easily missed.

We hope that this volume may induce the student to read Fabre’s subsequent volumes. Taken altogether they are, if not superior, at least not inferior to this one—preferred simply because it is the first of the series.

In his works there is a good deal of delightful autobiography. Starting as a child amidst the direst poverty, he has become a highly accomplished man, a great naturalist, a brilliant writer; and he has done this with a complete contempt for money, and a great indifference to the other rewards that Society is ready to bestow for such work.

D. SHARP.

Cambridge, 20th August 1901.

CONTENTS

PAGE I. The Sacred Beetle 1 II. The Enclosure 27 III. Cerceris Bupresticida 40 IV. Cerceris Tuberculata 51 V. One Skilful to Slay 67 VI. The Yellow-winged Sphex 80 VII. Three Strokes of a Dagger 93 VIII. Larva and Nymph 101 IX. Advanced Theories 116 X. The Sphex of Languedoc 132 XI. The Science of Instinct 146 XII. The Ignorance of Instinct 164 XIII. An Ascent of Mont Ventoux 179 XIV. The Emigrants 193 XV. The Ammophila 205 XVI. The Bembex 219 XVII. Hunting Diptera 233 XVIII. A Parasite—The Cocoon 243 XIX. The Return to the Nest 258 XX. Mason Bees 271 XXI. Experiments 289 XXII. An Exchange of Nests 306 Descriptive Notes 317

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The Sacred Beetle Frontispiece Dung Beetles gathering Provender Facing page 6 Geotrupes stercorarius fighting for the Pellet 12 Cerceris bupresticida and its Prey; Bupresticis micans and Buprestis flavomaculata 46 Cerceris tuberculata dragging Weevil to its Burrow 54 Cerceris ferreri and its Prey, the Weevil; Rhynchites betulæ on Birch Leaves, showing two leaves rolled up by the Weevil 58 Sphex flavipennis about to seize Grasshopper 120 Sphex occitanica taking a Sun Bath 136 The Sphex of Languedoc dragging to its Burrow an Ephippiger of the Vine 156 The Sphex of Languedoc and its enemy, the Praying Mantis 166 Ammophila hirsuta attacking a Grub 194 Ammophila sabulosa taking stone to cover its Burrow; A. argentata Mining 207 Ammophila hirsuta hunting for Caterpillars; Ammophila sabulosa on the Wing 208 Bembex rostrata taking Gadfly to its Nest; Bembex rostrata Mining 240 Mason Bees—Chalicodoma muraria on Old Nest 272 Mason Bees—Chalicodoma sicula and Nest 280

THE SACRED BEETLE

This was how it came about. We were five or six, I the oldest and their professor, still more their comrade and friend; they, young fellows with warm hearts and lively imaginations, overflowing with that youthful vitality which makes one so open to impressions and so eager for knowledge.

Talking of one thing and another we followed a path bordered with elder and hawthorn, where already the Rose Beetle was revelling in the overwhelming scent of the clustering blossoms. We were going to see if the Sacred Scarabæus had yet appeared on the sandy plateau of Les Angles, rolling the ball of dung which ancient Egypt looked on as emblematic of the world; we wanted to discover whether the running stream at the bottom of the hill might not hide young newts under the net of water weeds—newts whose branchiæ look like tiny sprays of coral; to see if that elegant little fish of the rivulet, the stickleback, had donned his wedding cravat of azure and purple; if the new-come swallows were dipping on pointed wings over the meadows chasing the midges which scatter their eggs in their airy dance; to see if the Eyed Lizard was sunning his blue-spotted body at the mouth of a hole made in the sandstone; or if the flocks of Laughing Gulls, come up from the sea after the legions of fish which ascend the Rhône to spawn, were hovering over the river, and now and again uttering their cry like the laugh of a maniac. But enough; suffice it to say that, like simple folk who find much pleasure in living with the brute creation, we were intending to spend a morning in enjoying the ineffable awakening of life in springtime.

We were not disappointed. The stickleback was in full dress, his scales would have made silver look dim; his throat was of the brightest vermilion. On the approach of a great horse-leech with no good intentions, up rose the spines on back and side as if moved by a spring. Thus bravely encountered, the bandit beat an ignominious retreat down among the water-plants. The dull race of molluscs, Planorbinæ, and water-snails were sucking in air on the surface of the water, and the great Water Beetle, with its hideous larva, went by wringing the neck now of one, now of another, without the stupid band seeming to notice it. But let us leave the waters of the plain and climb the steep cliff dividing us from the tableland where sheep are feeding and horses are being exercised for the approaching races, one and all bestowing largesse on the rejoicing dung beetles.

Part 2

For here at work are the scavenger beetles to whom is entrusted the high office of clearing the ground of impurities. It is impossible to admire sufficiently the variety of tools with which they are furnished, both to stir the dung with, to divide and shape it, and to hollow the deep retreats into which they shut themselves with their booty. These tools form a kind of technological museum, where there is a specimen of every kind of digging instrument. Some might be copied from those devised by human industry, others are of an original type, and might serve as models for new tools for man. Copris hispanica wears a strong horn on its head, forked and bent back, like the long spike of a pickaxe. To a similar horn C. lunaris adds two strong points, shaped liked a ploughshare, projecting from the thorax, and between them a sharp-edged protuberance, serving as a wide rake. Bubas bubalus and B. bison, both exclusively Mediterranean species, have foreheads armed with two stout, diverging horns, between which projects a horizontal share from the corslet. Geotrupes typhæus carries three points on the front of its thorax, parallel and standing straight out, the middle one shorter than the others. Onthophagus taurus owns as implements two long curving appendages like the horns of a bull, while the furcate Onthophagus has a two-pronged fork on its flat head. Even those least well off have on one part or other hard tubercules—tools blunt indeed, but which the patient insect knows very well how to utilise. All are furnished with a shovel, i.e. a large, flat, sharp-edged head; all use a rake—in other words, they collect materials with their toothed front legs.

Continue reading Insect Life: Souvenirs of a Naturalist free in the Wunder reader →