Côn trùng học của Fabre

iii!liilll;f!ii!|;::|1;':^:'^:;ll';:; ^f> FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS ^^1*1 i i :iJ BOOK OF INSECTS FABRE'S take no precaution to place the egg under cover, and in- deed the structure of the mother makes any such pre- The caution impossible egg, that delicate object, among grains of sand, It is the business of the laid roughly in the blazing sun, in some wrinkle of the chalk young grub The next to manage year as best continued I it my is can investigations, this time on the Anthrax of the Chalicodoma, a Bee that abounds in my own nine o'clock, field at Every morning neighbourhood when the sun begins to be unendur- I was prepared to c'ome back with from the glare, if only I able my puzzle The of success What delight; my gives The road shimmers head aching could bring home the solution of greater the heat, the better what prostrates took the I me torture fills the me braces the Fly like a sheet of molten my chances insect with From steel the dusty, melancholy olive-trees rises a mighty, throb- bing hum, the concert of the Cicadae, rustle creases with increasing frenzy as the temperature The Cicada of the Ash adds ings to the single note of the the ing, who sway and moment I For sometimes five or six Common its in- strident scrap- This Cicada is weeks, of tenest in the morn- in the afternoon, I set myself to explore the rocky waste There were plenty of the nests I wanted, but not see a single Anthrax on their surface settled in front of me to lay her egg [266] I could Not one At most, from time THE ANTHRAX FLY to time, I could see one passing far away, with petuous rush was It all I to lose her in the distance was impossible of the egg boys would In vain who keep I ; an im- and that to be present at the laying enlisted the services of the small the sheep in our meadows, and talked them of a big black Fly and the nests on which she ought to settle illusions By were dispelled in seeing the big black the end of August Not one my last of us had succeeded Fly perching on the dome of the Mason-bee The reason is, I believe, that she never perches there She comes and goes in every direction across the stony plain earthen Her practised eye can detect, as she flies, the dome which she is seeking, and having found it she swoops down, leaves her egg on it, without setting foot on the ground Should she take a rest it will be elsewhere, on the soil, a tuft of lavender or thyme neither I nor Meanwhile my young I It is and makes on a no wonder that shepherds could find her egg My of the nests, enough to shepherds procured fill my work-table the cocoons from the cells, and examined my heaps I took them within lens explored their innermost recesses, the sleeping larva, I me baskets and baskets; and these I inspected at leisure on nothing on searched the Mason-bees' nests for grubs just out of the egg and without: stone, off and the walls Nothing, nothing, For a fortnight and more nests were searched [267] BOOK OF INSECTS FABRE'S and rejected, and heaped up was crammed with them cocoons; to I It make me persevere At last I saw, or seemed "Was the Bee's larva of down it was not a grub But I because by stirred I I I study ripped up the needed the sturdiest faith to see, something move on Was an illusion? it breath? down; bit of at first was my vain In found nothing My in a corner It was it was not an it a bit illusion; and truly a really thought the discovery unimportant, so greatly puzzled by the little creature's appearance In a couple of days I was the owner of ten such worms and had placed each of them in a glass tube, together with the Bee-grub on which wriggled it that the least fold of skin concealed After watching failed to find it was lost: then from one day through the lens it it it again on the morrow it was It I I so tiny my sight sometimes would think would move, and become visible once more For some time the belief had been growing the Anthrax had tivo larval forms, a the second being the ready seen at its asked myself, the it was For at form first last I me that and a second, knew, the grub we have Was meals this new al- discovery, I Time showed me that saw my little worms transform form? themselves into the grub make I first in I have already described, and their first start at draining their victims [268] with kisses THE ANTHRAX FLY A few moments of make up satisfaction like those I then enjoyed many for a weary hour This tiny worm, the the Anthrax, first form or "primary larva" of very active is sides of its victim, walking It all tramps over the fat round It covers the it ground pretty quickly, buckling and unbuckling by turns, very much after the manner of the Looper-caterpillar When Its two ends are walking it and then looks like a bit It has thirteen rings or segments, swells out, of knotted string including chief points of support its tiny head, which bristles in front with its short, stiff hairs There are four other pairs of on the lower surface, and with the help of these bristles it For a fortnight the feeble grub remains walks in this condition, without growing, and apparently without eating is Indeed, what could it eat? In the cocoon there worm nothing but the larva of the Mason-bee, and the cannot eat this before it has the sucker or comes with the second form before, though plores its it does not eat mouth that Nevertheless, as I said from It ex- it is far idle future dish, and runs all over the neighbor- hood Now, a very good reason for this long In the natural state of the Anthrax-grub it is necessary The egg there is is laid by the mother on the surface of the at a distance from the Bee's larva, which by a thick rampart is It is the business of the [269] fast nest, protected new-born BOOK OF INSECTS FABRE'S grub to make of which its but by patiently slipping through a maze of cracks even for this slender very difficult task, It is a worm, for the Bee's building, no cracks due to the weather and that only point, masonry There are no chinks due exceedingly compact weak by violence, to its provisions, not incapable, is it way in a few grub is bad to I see but one it is the line nests: where the dome joins the surface of the stone weakness so seldom occurs that is I believe the This Anthrax- dome able to find an entrance at any spot on the of the Bee's nest The grub extremely weak, and has nothing but is How long it invincible patience through the masonry I cannot say laborious and the worker believe may it first so feeble I work its The work form of the Anthrax, which so In some cases very fortunate, you it is way is be months before the slow journey So complished takes to is I ac- see, that this exists only in order to pierce the walls of the Bees' nest, should be able to live without food At last I saw my young worms I knew and was and them- rid They then appeared selves of their outer skin grub shrink, as the so anxiously expecting, the grub of the Anthrax, the cream-colored cylinder with the button of a head Bee-grub, it began Fastening its meal Before taking leave of its round sucker You know this tiny [270] little to the the rest animal let us dwell THE ANTHRAX FLY for a moment on having just its marvellous instinct there is The no one to welcome mere thread of on its struggle with the What begins again know Yet both for the nourishing spot, not even try We it it starts sounds crawls on, retreats, What it? does the root of a plant Again, nothing Instantly inspiration urges lies in above enters the world, a it it slips in, what compass guides as cradle; is its Obstinately flint those depths, or of what I as it it under to life bare stone half-solid substance each pore of the stone; food, awakened left the egg, just the fierce rays of the sun Picture them? it does towards it know Nothing its of What of the earth's fruitfulness? the root Why? I to understand and the worm make not understand The question is far us have now followed the complete history of the Anthrax Its life which has its is divided into four periods, each of special form and primary larva enters the Bees' its nest, special work The which contains pro- visions; the secondary larva eats those provisions; the pupa brings the insect to light by boring through the enclosing wall ; the perfect insect strews the story starts afresh [271] its eggs Then ii DQ1S27D1 lOflfl rWient Fabra Ul46; I bocli ol f IB* ntKU E [...]... treasure of the future" THE ANTHRAX FLY Her delicate suit of downy merely breathing on tunnels it, velvet, from which you take the bloom by could not withstand the contact of rough 258 FABRE' S BOOK OF INSECTS BOOK OF INSECTS FABRE' S CHAPTER I MY WORK AND MY WORKSHOP WE have our own all Sometimes these talents, our special gifts gifts seem to come from our forefathers, but more often to us it is difficult... one thing at least when I made experiments of that kind, I kept at a distance always been my great desire to have a laboratory See Insect Adventures, retold for young people from the works of Henri Fabre [5] FABRE' S —not an easy thing open in the BOOK OF INSECTS fields to obtain about one's daily lives in a state of constant anxiety For forty years bread it when one was my dream for the own to a little... fortunate he will that are some day be a famous sculptor I To talk about oneself is hateful, I know, but perhaps may be allowed to do so for a moment, in order to intro- duce myself and my studies [1] FABRE' S From my BOOK OF INSECTS earliest childhood the things of Nature It I have felt drawn towards would be ridiculous that this gift, this love of observing plants my soil Of my and sheep suppose and... "Oh, but you mustn't do that I" cried the "You mustn't priest be so cruel as to rob the poor mother of all her little birds Be a good boy, now, and promise not to touch the nest." [3] BOOK OF INSECTS FABRE' S From conversation this that robbing birds' nests and beasts have names "What are the Saxicola just like ourselves mean?" all asked I first, cruel and, secondly, that birds is names of and meadows?"... BEETLE Sometimes the Scarab seems to a friend enter into partnership zvith Poge 13 ) hahr-e , ^''''•' J« I '~ux ^ ' fi i^ FAB RE'S ? BOOK OF INSECTS RETOLD FROMALEXANDER TEIXEIRADE MATTOS' TRANSLATK)N of FABRES "SOUVENIRS ENTOMOLOGIQUES" FT MRS.RODOLPH STAWELL Illustrated hy E-J-DETMOLD NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1921 COPTBIOHT, 1921 Bt DODD itEAD AND COICPANT INQ PRINTRD nr U B A CONTENTS CHAPTER... of insects at a single All the trades have made it their centre come hunters of every kind of game, builders cotton-weavers, leaf-cutters, [7] architects in Here in clay, pasteboard, ; BOOK OF INSECTS FABRE' S plasterers mixing mortar, carpenters boring wood, miners digging underground galleries, workers in gold-beaters' and many more skin, —here See is She scrapes the cobwebby a Tailor-bee stalk of... Sparrows and Owls; while the pond in summer afternoons you may far afield to are these all full of birds, hot is so popular with the Frogs that becomes a deafening orchestra [9] And boldest BOOK OF INSECTS FABRE' S of all, the Wasp has taken possession of the house On my doorway I go indoors I window must be careful not work of mining to tread upon her wall To as Just within a closed Mason-wasp has made her... ground contained the egg, and that the young Beetle came out of it is that in a Beetle But it as a matter of fact, simply his store of food It is not at all nice food For the work of [11] this Beetle FABRES BOOK OF INSECTS is to scour the filth he from the surface of the rolls so carefully roads and This is head flat is made The soil ball of his sweepings from the fields how he The edge it of his broad,... task his is which it usually hap- ready he leaves the prize backwards A hardly begun, suddenly drops his work and runs to the moving ball, to lend a hand to the owner His aid seems to be accepted [13] FABRE S BOOK OF INSECTS But the new-comer willingly he is a robber and patience; is not really a partner; To make one's own ball needs hard work one ready-made, or to invite one- to steal self to a neighbour's... passage to the surface, just wide is enough to admit the ball rolled into this As soon as his food burrow the Scarab shuts himself by stopping up the entrance with [15] rubbish The in ball BOOK OF INSECTS FABRE' S fills almost the whole room: the banquet rises from Only a narrow passage runs between to ceiling the walls, and here often only one night, for a the banqueters, sit Here week two and at most,