Social Life in the Insect World quotes

OF HER PROBOSCIS

Fame is the daughter of Legend.

In the world of creatures, as in the world of men, the story precedes and outlives history.

Fame is the daughter of Legend.

In the world of creatures, as in the world of men, the story precedes and outlives history.

There are many instances of the fact that if an insect attract our attention for this reason or that, it is given a place in those legends of the people whose last care is truth.

To most Englishmen—to most Frenchmen even—the song of the Cigale is unknown, for she dwells in the country of the olive-tree; but we all know of the treatment she received at the hands of the Ant.

On such trifles does Fame depend!

A legend of very dubious value, its moral as bad as its natural history; a nurse's tale whose only merit is its brevity;

a nurse's tale whose only merit is its brevity; such is the basis of a reputation which will survive the wreck of centuries no less surely than the tale of Puss-in-Boots and of Little Red Riding-Hood.

The child is the best guardian of tradition, the great conservative.

Custom and tradition become indestructible when confided to the archives of his memory. To the child we owe the celebrity of the Cigale, of whose misfortunes he has babbled during his first lessons in recitation.

The Greek, not finding in his country the insect of which the Hindoo spoke, introduced the Cigale, as in Paris, the modern Athens, the Cigale has been replaced by the Grasshopper. The mistake was made; henceforth indelible.

Entrusted as it is to the memory of childhood, error will prevail against the truth that lies before our eyes.

Let us seek to rehabilitate the songstress so calumniated by the fable. She is, I grant you, an importunate neighbour. Every summer she takes up her station in hundreds before my door, attracted thither by the verdure of two great plane-trees;

The larger, stamping with impatience, quickly snatch a mouthful, withdraw, take a turn on the neighbouring twigs, and then return, this time more enterprising.

Envy grows keener; those who but now were cautious become turbulent and aggressive, and would willingly drive from the spring the well-sinker who has caused it to flow.

In this crowd of brigands the most aggressive are the ants. I have seen them nibbling the ends of the Cigale's claws; I have caught them tugging the ends of her wings, climbing on her back, tickling her antennæ.

It is almost always more or less smeared with mud, sometimes dried, sometimes moist. The implements of excavation, the claws of the fore-feet, have their points covered by little globules of mortar; the others bear leggings of mud; the back is spotted with clay.

One is reminded of a scavenger who has been scooping up mud all day.

This condition is the more striking in that the insect comes from an absolutely dry soil. We should expect to see it dusty; we find it muddy.

Too closely observed it throws a jet of liquid upon the importunate enemy and flies away.

In both its forms the Cigale, in spite of its dry temperament, is a famous irrigator.

Dropsical as it is, the larva cannot contain sufficient liquid to moisten and convert into easily compressible mud the long column of earth which must be removed from the burrow. The reservoir becomes exhausted, and the provision must be renewed. Where, and how?

Pressed out of shape by the thumb and released, it yielded a very distressing, tinkling click. Nothing else was needed to take the popular mind by storm. The "cricket" had its day of glory.

Oblivion has executed justice upon it so effectually that I fear I shall not be understood when I recall this celebrated device.

The membranous cymbal and the steel cricket are analogous instruments. Both produce a sound by reason of the rapid deformation and recovery of an elastic substance—in one case a convex membrane; in the other a slip of steel.

The necessary vital organs are extremely small, confined to a mere corner of the body, in order to increase the amplitude of the resonating cavity.

Song comes first of all; other matters take the second rank.

It is lucky that the Cacan does not follow the laws of evolution.

Now are we to take their interminable chant for a passionate love-song? I hesitate. In this gathering the two sexes are side by side.

One does not spend months in calling a person who is at one's elbow.

Moreover, I have never seen a female rush into the midst of even the most deafening orchestra. Sight is a sufficient prelude to marriage, for their sight is excellent.

My neighbours the peasants say that at harvest-time the Cigale sings to them: Sego, sego, sego! (Reap, reap, reap!) to encourage them in their work.

Harvesters of ideas and of ears of grain, we follow the same calling; the latter produce food for the stomach, the former food for the mind.

Thus I understand their explanation and welcome it as an example of gracious simplicity.

Harvesters of ideas and of ears of grain, we follow the same calling; the latter produce food for the stomach, the former food for the mind. Thus I understand their explanation and welcome it as an example of gracious simplicity.

Science asks for a better explanation, but finds in the insect a world which is closed to us.

There is no possibility of foreseeing, or even of suggesting the impression produced by this clashing of cymbals upon those who inspire it. The most I can say is that their impassive exterior seems to denote a complete indifference.

Does the insect really require to emit these resounding effusions, these vociferous avowals, in order to declare its passion? Consult the immense majority whom the conjunction of the sexes leaves silent.

In the violin of the grasshopper, the bagpipe of the tree-frog, and the cymbals of the Cacan I see only their peculiar means of expressing the joy of living, the universal joy which every species of animal expresses after its kind.

If you were to tell me that the Cigales play on their noisy instruments careless of the sound produced, and merely for the pleasure of feeling themselves alive, just as we rub our hands in a moment of satisfaction, I should not be particularly shocked.

or, as I have said, like the fore portion of a tiny fish. You would think that an egg had been somehow displaced, had been removed from the bottom of the chamber to its aperture.

An egg to move in this narrow passage! a walking egg! No, that is impossible; eggs "do not do such things!"

This is some mistake. We will break open the twig, and the mystery is unveiled. The actual eggs are where they always were, though they are slightly disarranged. They are empty, reduced to the condition of transparent skins, split wide open at the upper end.

The tiny creature, no bigger than a flea, has preserved its tender newly-hatched flesh from contact with the rough earth by hanging in the air until its tissues have hardened.

Now it plunges into the troubles of life.

I foresee a thousand dangers ahead. A mere breath of wind may carry this atom away, and cast it on that inaccessible rock in the midst of a rut in the road which still contains a little water;

Coarse soils are more usual, on which the tiny creatures could make no impression. The larva must wander at hazard, must make a pilgrimage of indefinite duration before finding a favourable place. Very many, no doubt, perish, exhausted by their fruitless search.

A voyage of exploration in a country a few inches wide evidently forms part of the curriculum of young Cigales.

In my glass prison, so luxuriously furnished, this pilgrimage is useless. Never mind: it must be accomplished according to the consecrated rites.

Taking the average between these two dates, we get five weeks as the probable duration of the Cigales' life on earth.

Four years of hard labour underground, and a month of feasting in the sun; such is the life of the Cigale.

Do not let us again reproach the adult insect with his triumphant delirium. For four years, in the darkness he has worn a dirty parchment overall;

There is another creature of the Midi which is quite as curious and interesting as the Cigale, but much less famous, as it is voiceless.

If Providence had provided it with cymbals, which are a prime element of popularity, it would soon have eclipsed the renown of the celebrated singer, so strange is its shape, and so peculiar its manners.

It is called by the Provençals lou Prègo-Diéu, the creature which prays to God. Its official name is the Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa, Lin.).

He has noticed its wide, delicate wings of green, trailing behind it like long linen veils; he has seen its fore-limbs, its arms, so to speak, raised towards to the sky in a gesture of invocation.

This was enough: popular imagination has done the rest; so that since the period of classical antiquity the bushes have been peopled with priestesses emitting oracles and nuns in prayer.

Good people, how very far astray your childlike simplicity has led you! These attitudes of prayer conceal the most atrocious habits; these supplicating arms are lethal weapons; these fingers tell no rosaries, but help to exterminate the unfortunate passer-by.

these supplicating arms are lethal weapons; these fingers tell no rosaries, but help to exterminate the unfortunate passer-by. It is an exception that we should never look for in the vegetarian family of the Orthoptera, but the Mantis lives exclusively upon living prey.

It is the tiger of the peaceful insect peoples; the ogre in ambush which demands a tribute of living flesh.

If it only had sufficient strength its blood-thirsty appetites, and its horrible perfection of concealment would make it the terror of the countryside. The Prègo-Diéu would become a Satanic vampire.

Thanks to a flexible neck, set freely upon the thorax, the head can turn to right or left as on a pivot, bow, or raise itself high in the air.

Alone among insects, the Mantis is able to direct its gaze; it inspects and examines; it has almost a physiognomy.

There is a very great contrast between the body as a whole, which has a perfectly peaceable aspect, and the murderous fore-limbs. The haunch of the fore-limb is unusually long and powerful.

At the sight of a great cricket, which thoughtlessly approaches along the wire-work of the cover, the Mantis, shaken by a convulsive start, suddenly assumes a most terrifying posture.

An electric shock would not produce a more immediate result.

The transition is so sudden, the mimicry so threatening, that the unaccustomed observer will draw back his hand, as though at some unknown danger. Seasoned as I am, I myself must confess to being startled on occasions when my thoughts have been elsewhere.

The transition is so sudden, the mimicry so threatening, that the unaccustomed observer will draw back his hand, as though at some unknown danger. Seasoned as I am, I myself must confess to being startled on occasions when my thoughts have been elsewhere.

The creature spreads out like a fan actuated by a spring, or a fantastic Jack-in-the-box.

The wing-covers open, and are thrust obliquely aside; the wings spring to their full width, standing up like parallel screens of transparent gauze, forming a pyramidal prominence which dominates the back;

As one does not speak of the "egg-box" of the titmouse, meaning "the nest of the titmouse," why should I invoke the box in speaking of the Mantis? It may look more scientific; but that does not interest me.

The nest of the Praying Mantis may be found almost everywhere in places exposed to the sun: on stones, wood, vine stocks, the twigs of bushes, stems of dried grass, and even on products of human industry, such as fragments of brick, rags of heavy cloth, and pieces of old boots.

Any support will suffice, so long as it offers inequalities to which the base of the nest may adhere, and so provide a solid foundation.

From another point of view the nest of the Mantis is even more remarkable. It forms an excellent application of one of the most valuable lessons of physical science in the matter of the conservation of heat.

The Mantis has outstripped humanity in her knowledge of thermic nonconductors or insulators.

The famous physicist Rumford was responsible for a very pretty experiment designed to demonstrate the low conductivity of air where heat other than radiant heat is concerned. The famous scientist surrounded a frozen cheese by a mass of foam consisting of well-beaten eggs.

No matter: the singular object exists; it catches the eye, it attracts attention. It must therefore be good for something; it must possess virtue of some kind.

So in all ages have the simple reasoned, in the childlike hope of finding in the unfamiliar an alleviation of their sorrows.

By general agreement the rural pharmacopœia of Provence pronounces the tigno to be the best of remedies against chilblains. The method of employment is of the simplest.

If this massacre did not occur in a dumb world we should hear all the horrible tumult of the slaughter-houses of Chicago.

But only the ear of the mind can hear the shrieks and lamentations of the eviscerated victims.

For myself, I possess this ear, and am full of remorse for having provoked such sufferings.

This: That the man of elevated morality is so far a very rare exception. Under the skin of the civilised being there lurks almost always the ancestor, the savage contemporary of the cave-bear.

True humanity does not yet exist; it is growing, little by little, created by the ferment of the centuries and the dictates of conscience; but it progresses towards the highest with heartbreaking slowness.

It was only yesterday that slavery finally disappeared: the basis of the ancient social organism; only yesterday was it realised that man, even though black, is really man and deserves to be treated accordingly.

We are made after a certain pattern and we can do nothing to change ourselves. We are marked with the mark of the beast, the taint of the belly, the inexhaustible source of bestiality.

The intestine rules the world.

In the midst of our most serious affairs there intrudes the imperious question of bread and butter.

So long as there are stomachs to digest—and as yet we are unable to dispense with them—we must find the wherewithal to fill them, and the powerful will live by the sufferings of the weak.

Life is a void that only death can fill.

Hence the endless butchery by which man nourishes himself, no less than beetles and other creatures; hence the perpetual holocausts which make of this earth a knacker's yard, beside which the slaughter-houses of Chicago are as nothing.

Then follows the battle for the right of possession. Man raises armies; to defend his harvests, his granaries, and his cellars, he resorts to warfare. When shall we see the end of it? Alas, and many times alas!

As long as there are wolves in the world there must be watch-dogs to defend the flock.

This train of thought has led us far away from our beetles. Let us return to them.

Let us return to them. What was my motive in provoking the massacre of this peaceful procession of caterpillars who were on the point of self-burial when I gave them over to the butchers? Was it to enjoy the spectacle of a frenzied massacre?

By no means; I have always pitied the sufferings of animals, and the smallest life is worthy of respect.

To overcome this pity there needed the exigencies of scientific research—exigencies which are often cruel.

This is a great pity. If only the beetle could climb how rapidly three or four would rid our cabbages of that grievous pest, the larva of the white cabbage butterfly!

Alas! the best have always some failing, some vice.

To exterminate caterpillars: that is the true vocation of the Golden Gardener. It is annoying that it can give us but little or no assistance in ridding us of another plague of the kitchen-garden: the snail.

Is it their custom to kill the wounded and to eviscerate such of their fellows as suffer damage?

Pity is unknown among insects.

At the sight of the desperate struggles of a crippled fellow-creature none of the same family will cry a halt, none will attempt to come to its aid. Among the carnivorous insects the matter may develop to a tragic termination.

The breeding of Crickets demands no particular preparations.

A little patience is enough—patience, which according to Buffon is genius; but which I, more modestly, will call the superlative virtue of the observer.

In April, May, or later we may establish isolated couples in ordinary flower-pots containing a layer of beaten earth. Their diet will consist of a leaf of lettuce renewed from time to time.

The end of the egg, pushed by the head of the inmate, becomes detached, rises, and falls aside like the top of a tiny phial.

The Cricket issues like a Jack-in-the-box.

When the Cricket has departed the shell remains distended, smooth, intact, of the purest white, with the circular lid hanging to the mouth of the door of exit.

When the Cricket has departed the shell remains distended, smooth, intact, of the purest white, with the circular lid hanging to the mouth of the door of exit.

The egg of the bird breaks clumsily under the blows of a wart-like excrescence which is formed expressly upon the beak of the unborn bird; the egg of the Cricket, of a far superior structure, opens like an ivory casket.

The pressure of the inmate's head is sufficient to work the hinge.

Even in winter, if the weather is mild, and the sun smiles upon the threshold of his dwelling, one may sometimes surprise the Cricket thrusting out small quantities of loosened earth, a sign of enlargement and of further burrowing.

In the midst of the joys of spring the cares of the house still continue; it is constantly restored and perfected until the death of the occupant.

April comes to an end, and the song of the Cricket commences. At first we hear only timid and occasional solos; but very soon there is a general symphony, when every scrap of turf has its performer.

From the ground the chorus of the Crickets replies. It is monotonous and artless, yet how well it harmonises, in its very simplicity, with the rustic gaiety of a world renewed!

It is the hosanna of the awakening, the alleluia of the germinating seed and the sprouting blade.

To which of the two performers should the palm be given? I should award it to the Cricket; he triumphs by force of numbers and his never-ceasing note.

She flies towards the brake, but hopes first to be perceived, said the poet of the delightful eclogue, two thousand years ago.

Sacred provocations of lovers, are they not in all ages the same?

My house shelters no specimens of the domestic Cricket, the guest of bakeries and rustic hearths. But although in my village the chinks under the hearthstones are mute, the nights of summer are musical with a singer little known in the North.

It is, on the contrary, a slender, weakly creature; its colour very pale, indeed almost white, as is natural in view of its nocturnal habits. In handling it one is afraid of crushing it between the fingers.

It lives an aerial existence; on shrubs and bushes of all kinds, on tall herbage and grasses, and rarely descends to the earth.

Its song, the pleasant voice of the calm, hot evenings from July to October, commences at sunset and continues for the greater part of the night.

You go forward. Nothing is there. The sound proceeds again from its original point. But no—it is not there; it is to the left now—unless it is to the right—or behind....

Complete confusion! It is impossible to detect, by means of the ear, the direction from which the chirp really comes.

Much patience and many precautions will be required before you can capture the insect by the light of the lantern.

The gentle touch of a finger-tip muffles the sharp, loud ringing of a glass tumbler or "musical-glass" and changes it into a veiled, indefinite sound which seems to come from a distance.

The White Cricket knows this secret of acoustics.

It misleads those that seek it by pressing the edge of its vibrating membranes to the soft flesh of its abdomen. Our musical instruments have their dampers; that of the Œcanthus pellucens rivals and surpasses them in simplicity of means and perfection of results.

How many times, per amica silentia lunæ, have I lain upon the ground, in the shelter of a clump of rosemary, to listen to the delicious concert!

The nocturnal Cricket sings continually in the gardens.

Each tuft of the red-flowered cistus has its band of musicians, and each bush of fragrant lavender. The shrubs and the terebinth-trees contain their orchestras. With its clear, sweet voice, all this tiny world is questioning, replying, from bush to bush, from tree to tree;

The nocturnal Cricket sings continually in the gardens. Each tuft of the red-flowered cistus has its band of musicians, and each bush of fragrant lavender. The shrubs and the terebinth-trees contain their orchestras.

With its clear, sweet voice, all this tiny world is questioning, replying, from bush to bush, from tree to tree; or rather, indifferent to the songs of others, each little being is singing his joys to himself alone.

Above my head the constellation of Cygnus stretches its great cross along the Milky Way; below, all around me, palpitates the insect symphony. The atom telling of its joys makes me forget the spectacle of the stars.

Above my head the constellation of Cygnus stretches its great cross along the Milky Way; below, all around me, palpitates the insect symphony.

The atom telling of its joys makes me forget the spectacle of the stars.

We know nothing of these celestial eyes which gaze upon us, cold and calm, with scintillations like the blinking of eyelids.

Above my head the constellation of Cygnus stretches its great cross along the Milky Way; below, all around me, palpitates the insect symphony. The atom telling of its joys makes me forget the spectacle of the stars.

We know nothing of these celestial eyes which gaze upon us, cold and calm, with scintillations like the blinking of eyelids.

Science tells us of their distance, their speeds, their masses, their volumes; it burdens us with stupendous numbers and stupefies us with immensities; but it does not succeed in moving us. And why? Because it lacks the great secret: the secret of life.

and for this reason, as I lean against the hedge of rosemary, I bestow only an absent glance upon the constellation of Cygnus, but give all my attention to your serenade.

A little animated slime, capable of pleasure and pain, surpasses in interest the universe of dead matter.

The duties of paternity are seldom imposed on any but the higher animals. They are most notable in the bird; and the furry peoples acquit themselves honourably.

The male of the genus, in whom we should expect the requirements of the young to develop the highest aptitudes, is as useless as a butterfly, whose family costs so little to establish.

The actual distribution of instinct upsets our most reasonable previsions.

It upsets our expectations so completely that we are surprised to find in the dung-beetle the noble prerogative which is lacking in the bee tribe. The mates of several species of dung-beetle keep house together and know the worth of mutual labour.

his fine ear will catch the chirping of a grasshopper inaudible to me. He lends me his sight and hearing, and I in return make him free of my thoughts, which he welcomes attentively, raising his wide blue eyes questioningly to mine.

What an adorable thing is the first blossoming of the intellect!

Best of all ages is that when the candid curiosity awakens and commences to acquire knowledge of every kind. Little Paul has his own insectorium, in which the Scarabæus makes his balls;

his plantation, containing four oak-trees an inch in height, to which the acorns still adhere. These serve as diversions after the arid study of grammar, which goes forward none the worse on that account.

What beautiful and useful knowledge the teaching of natural history might put into childish heads, if only science would consider the very young; if our barracks of universities would only combine the lifeless study of books with the living study of the fields; if only the red tape of the curriculum, so dear to bureaucrats, would not strangle all willing initiative.

Little Paul and I will study as much as possible in the open country, among the rosemary bushes and arbutus. There we shall gain vigour of body and of mind; we shall find the true and the beautiful better than in school-books.

Before it is moved, even before it is cut loose from its point of support, the fragment is modelled into the shape of a sphere.

The beetle as geometer is aware of the form best adapted to the long preservation of preserved foods.

The ball is soon ready. It must now be forced to acquire, by means of a vigorous rolling, the crust which will protect the interior from a too rapid evaporation. The mother, recognisable by her slightly robuster body, takes the place of honour in front.

Even on level ground the task is not without its difficulties. At every moment the load swerves on the summit of a pebble, a fragment of gravel; the team are overturned, and lie on their backs, kicking their legs in the air.

This is a mere nothing. They pick themselves up and resume their positions, always quick and lively.

The accidents which so often throw them on their backs seem to cause them no concern; one would even think they were invited. The pilule has to be matured, given a proper consistency.

a figure which the Scarabæus sacer is far from attaining. To what should we attribute this superior fertility? I can only see one cause: the fact that the male works as valiantly as the female.

Family cares too great for the strength of one are not too heavy when there are two to support them.

To encounter among the Hymenoptera, those ardent lovers of flowers, a species which goes a-hunting on its own account is, to say the least of it, astonishing. That the larder of the larvæ should be provisioned with captured prey is natural enough;

That the larder of the larvæ should be provisioned with captured prey is natural enough; but that the provider, whose diet is honey, should itself devour its captives is a fact both unexpected and difficult to comprehend.

We are surprised that a drinker of nectar should become a drinker of blood.

But our surprise abates if we consider the matter closely. The double diet is more apparent than real; the stomach which fills itself with the nectar of flowers does not gorge itself with flesh.

The originality of her pose at the moment of striking surpasses anything I have ever witnessed.

The love of knowledge in matters of natural history is not without its cruelties.

To make absolutely certain of the point attained by the sting, and to inform myself completely concerning this horrible talent for murder, I have provoked I dare not confess how many assassinations in captivity.

If the bee were seized in the inverse position, or if the sting were to go slightly astray, the results would be totally different; the sting, penetrating the bee in a downward direction, would poison the first thoracic ganglion and provoke a partial paralysis only.

What art, to destroy a miserable bee!

In what fencing-school did the slayer learn that terrible upward thrust beneath the chin?

And here again arises, more insistently than before, the question I asked but now: how is it that the Philanthus has learned for purposes of attack what the bee has not learned for purposes of defence.

To this difficulty I see only one reply: the one knows without having learned and the other does not know, being incapable of learning.

the tactics of the Philanthus. As a witness of its ferocious feasting, the true motive of which was unknown to me, I treated it to all the unfavourable epithets I could think of; called it assassin, bandit, pirate, robber of the dead.

Ignorance is always abusive; the man who does not know is full of violent affirmations and malign interpretations.

Undeceived by the facts, I hasten to apologise and express my esteem for the Philanthus. In emptying the stomach of the bee the mother is performing the most praiseworthy of all duties; she is guarding her family against poison.

They rushed at the candle and extinguished it with a flap of the wing; they fluttered on our shoulders, clung to our clothing, grazed our faces.

My study had become a cave of a necromancer, the darkness alive with creatures of the night!

Little Paul, to reassure himself, held my hand much tighter than usual.

So well it directs its tortuous flight that, in spite of all the obstacles to be evaded, it arrives in a state of perfect freshness, its great wings intact, without the slightest flaw.

The darkness is light enough for the butterfly.

Even if we suppose it to be sensitive to rays unknown to the ordinary retina, this extraordinary sight could not be the sense that warns the butterfly at a distance and brings it hastening to the bride.

Perhaps, too, the low temperature was unfavourable to the informing effluvia, which might well be increased by heat and lessened by cold as is the case with many odours. My year was lost.

Research is disappointing work when the experimenter is the slave of the return and the caprices of a brief season of the year.

For the third time I began again. I reared caterpillars; I scoured the country in search of cocoons. When May returned I was tolerably provided. The season was fine, responding to my hopes.

During the whole evening not one of them moved. Next day they were still there.

The intoxication of the light had made them forget the intoxication of love.

With creatures so madly in love with the light precise and prolonged experimentation is impracticable the moment the observer requires artificial light. I renounced the Great Peacock and its nocturnal habits. I required a butterfly with different habits;

On one single occasion about sixty males had arrived. Considering the rarity of the Oak Eggar, and remembering the years of fruitless search on the part of my helpers and myself, this number was no less than stupefying.

The undiscoverable had suddenly become multitudinous at the call of the female.

Whence did they come? From all sides, and undoubtedly from considerable distances.

That I did not do so was due to a fortuitous observation.

Chance often has a surprise in store which sets us on the right road when we have been seeking it in vain.

One afternoon, while trying to determine whether sight plays any part in the search for the female once the males had entered the room, I placed the female in a bell-glass and gave her a slender twig of oak with withered leaves as a support.

they passed the bell-glass actually containing the female without halting for a moment, although she must have been seen by many of the moths both going and coming.

Maddened by a lure, they paid no attention to the reality.

What was the lure that so deceived them? All the preceding night and all the morning the female had remained under the wire-gauze cover; sometimes clinging to the wire-work, sometimes resting on the sand in the tray.

The master digs at the point indicated. If the spade goes astray the dog corrects the digger, sniffing at the bottom of the hole. Have no fear that stones and roots will confuse him; in spite of depth and obstacles, the truffle will be found.

A dog's nose cannot lie.

I have referred to the dog's speciality as a subtle sense of smell. That is certainly what I mean, if you will understand by that that the nasal passages of the animal are the seat of the perceptive organ;

Certainly there was not much outside show about him, this artist that I so desired to see at work; a dog of doubtful breed, placid and meditative; uncouth, ungroomed, and quite inadmissible to the intimacies of the hearthrug.

Talent and poverty are often mated.

His master, a celebrated rabassier[5] of the village, being convinced that my object was not to steal his professional secrets, and so sooner or later to set up in business as a competitor, admitted me of his company, a favour of which he was not …

If the scent of the dog leaves us perplexed in the sense that we cannot possibly say precisely, cannot even suspect what it is that the dog perceives, at least it is clear that it would be erroneous to refer everything to human standards.

The world of sensations is far larger than the limits of our own sensibility.

What numbers of facts relating to the interplay of natural forces must escape us for want of sufficiently sensitive organs!

The world of sensations is far larger than the limits of our own sensibility. What numbers of facts relating to the interplay of natural forces must escape us for want of sufficiently sensitive organs!

The unknown—that inexhaustible field in which the men of the future will try their strength—has harvests in store for us beside which our present knowledge would show as no more than a wretched gleaning.

Under the sickle of science will one day fall the sheaves whose grain would appear to-day as senseless paradoxes. Scientific dreams? No, if you please, but undeniable positive realities, affirmed by the brute creation, which in certain respects has so great an advantage over us.

sometimes—and not rarely—the hermit will be found embracing a small subterranean fungus, entire or partly consumed. It presses it convulsively to its bosom and will not be parted from it. This is the insect's booty: its worldly wealth.

Scattered crumbs inform us that we have surprised the beetle at a feast.

Let us deprive the insect of its booty. We find a sort of irregular, rugged, purse-like object, varying in size from the largeness of a pea to that of a cherry. The exterior is reddish, covered with fine warts, having an appearance not unlike shagreen;

It was his sachet of musk, his flask of eau-de-Cologne. Perfumed to his liking, he would rise, shake himself, and proceed on his way, delighted with his toilet. Do not let us scold him, and above all do not let us discuss the matter.

There are all kinds of tastes in a world.

Why should there not be insects with similar habits among the amateurs of corpse-like savours? We see Dermestes and Saprinidæ hastening to the arum-flower. All day long they writhe and wriggle in a swarm, although perfectly free to escape; numbers perish in the tumultuous orgy.

Moreover, where my laboratory was previously saturated with powerful odours which should have overcome and annihilated any particularly delicate effluvium, the male moths arrived without the least indication of confusion or delay.

A loud noise stifles a feeble note and prevents it from being heard; a brilliant light eclipses a feeble glimmer.

Heavy waves overcome and obliterate ripples. In the two cases cited we have waves of the same nature. But a clap of thunder does not diminish the feeblest jet of light; the dazzling glory of the sun will not muffle the slightest sound.

Here I can see some reader shrug his shoulders. Well, if the only end of life is to make money by hook or by crook, such questions are certainly ridiculous.

Happily there are some to whom nothing in the majestic riddle of the universe is little.

They know of what humble materials the bread of thought is kneaded; a nutriment no less necessary than the bread made from wheat; and they know that both labourers and inquirers nourish the world with an accumulation of crumbs.

Happily there are some to whom nothing in the majestic riddle of the universe is little.

They know of what humble materials the bread of thought is kneaded; a nutriment no less necessary than the bread made from wheat; and they know that both labourers and inquirers nourish the world with an accumulation of crumbs.

Let us take pity on the question, and proceed. Without seeing it at work, we already suspect that the fantastic beak of the Balaninus is a drill analogous to those which we ourselves use in order to perforate hard materials.

But however well founded our suspicion may be, it is not a certitude.

I can only discover the secret by watching the insect at work.

Chance, the servant of those that patiently solicit it, grants me a sight of the acorn-beetle at work, in the earlier half of October. My surprise is great, for at this late season all industrial activity is as a rule at an end.

Torn away from her foothold, the suspended insect vainly struggles in air; nowhere can her feet, those safety anchors, find a hold. She starves at the end of her snout, for lack of foothold whereby to extricate herself.

Like the artisans in our factories, the elephant-beetle is sometimes the victim of her tools.

Let us wish her good luck, and sure feet, careful not to slip, and proceed.

Like all the mighty who are worthy of their strength, the oak is generous; it produces acorns by the bushel. What could the earth do with such prodigality?

The forest would stifle itself for want of room; excess would ruin the necessary.

But no sooner is this abundance of food produced than there is an influx from every side of consumers only too eager to abate this inordinate production. The field-mouse, a native of the woods, stores acorns in a gravel-heap near its hay-lined nest.

My friend, I would say to him, the forest guard cannot take legal proceedings against the offender, and it is just as well, for our egoism, which is inclined to see in the acorn only a garland of sausages, would have annoying results.

The oak calls the whole world to enjoy its fruits.

We take the larger part because we are the stronger. That is our only right.

But how did it get there, so far from the point of entry? A very trifling question, it is true; puerile even, if you will.

Do not let us disdain to ask it; science is made of these puerilities.

The first man to rub a piece of amber on his sleeve and to find that it thereupon attracted fragments of chaff had certainly no vision of the electric marvels of our days. He was amusing himself in a childlike manner.

He was amusing himself in a childlike manner. Repeated, tested, and probed in every imaginable way, the child's experiment has become one of the forces of the world.

The observer must neglect nothing; for he never knows what may develop out of the humblest fact.

So again we will ask: by what process did the egg of the elephant-beetle reach a point so far from the orifice in the acorn?

They are our work, but not always our exclusive property.

Wherever food is amassed, the consumers collect from the four corners of the sky; they invite themselves to the feast of abundance, and the richer the food the greater their numbers.

Man, who alone is capable of inducing agrarian abundance, is by that very fact the giver of an immense banquet at which legions of feasters take their place.

This is the immanent law.

Nature, with an equal zeal, offers her mighty breast to all her nurslings alike; to those who live by the goods of others no less than to the producers.

For us, who plough, sow, and reap, and weary ourselves with labour, she ripens the wheat;

I have often found our weevil in such a winter refuge. Sheltered under the dead covering of the plane, or otherwise protected while the winter lasts, it awakens from its torpor at the first touch of a kindly sun.

The almanack of the instincts has aroused it; it knows as well as the gardener when the pea-vines are in flower, and seeks its favourite plant, journeying thither from every side, running with quick, short steps, or nimbly flying.

A small head, a fine snout, a costume of ashen grey sprinkled with brown, flattened wing-covers, a dumpy, compact body, with two large black dots on the rear segment—such is the summary portrait of my visitor.

I have found ten, and there is no reason why this prodigality should not go still further.

Many are called, but few are chosen!

What is to become of all these supernumeraries, perforce excluded from the banquet for want of space?

No superfluous larvæ perish of hunger when barely issued from the egg; all have their share of the ample provision; all live and prosper.

The abundance of food balances the prodigal fertility of the mother.

If the Bruchus were always to adopt the broad bean for the establishment of her family I could well understand the exuberant allowance of eggs to one pod; a rich food-stuff easily obtained evokes a large batch of eggs.

The weevil was of the same opinion as man, and without entirely forgetting the bean and the vetch it established the greater part of its tribe upon the pea, which from century to century was more widely cultivated.

To-day we have to share our peas: the Bruchidæ take what they need, and bestow their leavings on us.

This prosperity of the insect which is the offspring of the abundance and quality of our garden products is from another point of view equivalent to decadence. For the weevil, as for ourselves, progress in matters of food and drink is not always beneficial.

This prosperity of the insect which is the offspring of the abundance and quality of our garden products is from another point of view equivalent to decadence.

For the weevil, as for ourselves, progress in matters of food and drink is not always beneficial.

The race would profit better if it remained frugal. On the bean and the vetch the Bruchus founded colonies in which the infant mortality was low. There was room for all.

It stops short at the horny covering, simply because it is checked by an uneatable substance. From this aversion a little miracle arises; but the insect has no sense of logic; it is passively obedient to the superior logic of facts.

It obeys its instinct, as unconscious of its act as is a crystal when it assembles, in exquisite order, its battalions of atoms.

Sooner or later during the month of August we see a shadowy circle form on each inhabited pea; but only one on each seed. These circles of shadow mark the doors of exit. Most of them open in September.

Yet who has told you, O man of little faith, that what is useless to-day will not be useful to-morrow? If we learn the customs of insects or animals we shall understand better how to protect our goods.

Do not despise disinterested knowledge, or you may rue the day.

It is by the accumulation of ideas, whether immediately applicable or otherwise, that humanity has done, and will continue to do, better to-day than yesterday, and better to-morrow than to-day.

If we live on peas and beans, which we dispute with the weevil, we also live by knowledge, that mighty kneading-trough in which the bread of progress is mixed and leavened.

Knowledge is well worth a few beans.

Among other things, knowledge tells us: "The seedsman need not go to the expense of waging war upon the weevil. When the peas arrive in the granary, the harm is already done; it is irreparable, but not transmissible.

Does the word as a matter of fact come from the American Indians? Did we receive, together with the vegetable, the name by which it is known in its native country? Perhaps; but how are we to know?

Haricot, fantastic haricot, you set us a curious philological problem.

It is also known in French as faséole, or flageolet. The Provençal calls it faioù and favioù; the Catalan, fayol; the Spaniard, faseolo; the Portuguese, feyâo; the Italian, fagiuolo. Here I am on familiar ground:

"It is my discovery of the etymology of the word haricot!"

I was so amazed that I forgot to laugh.

"I am perfectly serious in telling you this."

The process of beating the pods to loosen and separate the beans is thus greatly facilitated. It is then that the weevil, finding matters to suit her, commences to lay her eggs.

By storing his crop a little late the peasant stores the pest as well.

But the weevil more especially attacks the haricot when warehoused.

it goes from one to the other, always satisfied; its offspring live and prosper in all these seeds as well as in the haricot. Only the lentil is refused, perhaps on account of its insufficient volume.

The American weevil is a formidable experimentalist.

The peril would be much greater did the insect pass from leguminous seeds to cereals, as at first I feared it might. But it does not do so;

They are so soft that they bend under their own weight, and hang down the creature's sides in the reverse of their normal position. The free extremities, which normally point backwards, are now pointing towards the cricket's head as it hangs reversed.

The organs of future flight are like four leaves of withered foliage shattered by a terrific rainstorm.

A profound transformation is necessary to bring the wings to their final perfection. The inner changes are already at work; liquids are solidifying; albuminous secretions are bringing order out of chaos;

If any one asked you to extract a saw from a scabbard exactly moulded upon the steel, and to conduct the operation without the slightest degree of tearing or scratching, you would laugh at the flagrant impossibility of the task.

But life makes light of such absurdities; it has its methods of performing the impossible when such methods are required.

The leg of the locust affords us such an instance.

Similarly, the wing of a cricket, that wonderful piece of lace-work emerging from a tiny sheath, speaks to us of another Architect, the author of the plans according to which life labours.

The genesis of living creatures offers to our contemplation an infinity of wonders far greater than this matter of a locust's wing; but in general they pass unperceived, obscured as they are by the veil of time.

Time, in the deliberation of mysteries, deprives us of the most astonishing of spectacles except our spirits be endowed with a tenacious patience. Here by exception the fact is accomplished with a swiftness that forces the attention.

The genesis of living creatures offers to our contemplation an infinity of wonders far greater than this matter of a locust's wing; but in general they pass unperceived, obscured as they are by the veil of time.

Time, in the deliberation of mysteries, deprives us of the most astonishing of spectacles except our spirits be endowed with a tenacious patience.

Here by exception the fact is accomplished with a swiftness that forces the attention.

The insect will show him that which is hidden from our curiosity by extreme deliberation in the germinating seed, the opening leaf, and the budding flower.

We cannot see the grass grow; but we can watch the growth of the locust's wings.

Amazement seizes upon us before this sublime phantasmagoria of the grain of hemp which in a few hours has been transmuted into the finest cloth.

We do not precisely know. The qualification albis guttis, white spots, would fit the Pine-chafer well enough, but it is not sufficient to make us certain. Pliny himself does not seem to have been very certain of the identity of the remedy.

In his time men's eyes had not yet learned to see the insect world.

Insects were too small; they were well enough for amusing children, who would tie them to the end of a long thread and make them walk in circles, but they were not worthy of occupying the attention of a self-respecting man.

In spite of all my respect for the antique, I cannot myself accept the term "fuller," because under the circumstances it is absurd.

Common sense should be considered before the aberrations of nomenclature.

Why not call our subject the Pine-chafer, in reference to the beloved tree, the paradise of the insect during the two or three weeks of its aerial life? Nothing could be simpler, or more appropriate, to give the better reason last.

Why not call our subject the Pine-chafer, in reference to the beloved tree, the paradise of the insect during the two or three weeks of its aerial life? Nothing could be simpler, or more appropriate, to give the better reason last.

We have to wander for ages in the night of absurdity before we reach the radiant light of the truth.

All our sciences witness to this fact; even the science of numbers. Try to add a column of Roman figures; you will abandon the task, stupefied by the confusion of symbols;

The seven-leaved apparatus is for the Pine-chafer what his long vibrating horns are to the Cerambyx and the panoply of the head to the Onthophagus and the forked antlers of the mandibles to the Stag-beetle.

Each decks himself after his manner in these nuptial extravagances.

This handsome chafer appears towards the summer solstice, almost simultaneously with the first Cigales. The punctuality of its appearance gives it a place in the entomological calendar, which is no less punctual than that of the seasons.