Fabre, Poet of Science

loweth Whithe

h marvellous results? Is it merely a degree of intell

ver some of those elementary springs of action whose knowle

not only with memory, but also with the faculty of associating ideas, of judgment, and

r, the "transcendent" anatomist trips over a mer

her eyes, first passing her hands across her mouth; she assumes a dreamy, meditative air." What can she be pondering? Under what form of thought,

re what is passing in the brains of our fellows. Between the insect and ourselves no understanding is possible, so remote are the analogies be

operations and their labours, as it is in itself, and let us content ourselves, fi

ncts, a vast and remote horizon, a region at once more profound, more extensive, and more fruitful than that of the intelligence; and if Fabre is able to help us to decipher a few pages o

y of observations and experiments, and the richest contribution wh

to relate the effect to its cause, to add a "because" to a "why"; to reme

mpulsive and unconscious, and, properly speaking, innate. He has demonstrated, with an abundance of proof and a power of argument that we must admire, the blind mechanism which determines all the

most suggestive examples, select some of his most str

ufficiently fascinating study, without striving to crack an unbreakable bone or wasting time in pondering insoluble enigmas. The important matter is to avoid the introduction of

r thousand pages, teach us more concerning instinct and its innumerable varia

d of the observer like the spectacle o

foreordained by the previously established circumstances, Fabre s

s and inflexible prescription. Without apprenticeship, they perfo

not reawaken. A few days more or less modify the talents, and

by the emancipated young, who are destined to roam upon the face of the earth. But the young Lycosae, anxious to leave the maternal home and to travel, become suddenly ardent climbers and aeronauts, e

he mason-bee, upon the indissoluble succession of its different phases; the lineal concatenation, the inevitable and necessary ord

provisioning a cell already duly filled with the quantity of honey required by the larva, because, in this cas

rovisioning being complete, the secret impulse which urged her to collect her honey is no longer active. The insect therefore ceases to sto

r attention to one of the most instructive p

ore away spiders for a germ that no longer exists; she perseveres untiringly in her useless hunting, as though the future of her larva depended on it; she amasses provisions which will feed no one; more, she p

ty of insects to escape from the routine of their customs and their habit

structure of its web, when broken; it recommences the entire web every evening, and we

d "in spite of the certainty of its death, or rather that of the future butterfly, it quietly continues to spin, without troubling to cover the rent; devoting it

eps or repeat its actions, which follow one another invariably, and are inevitably connected in a necessary order, like a series of echoes, one of which awakens another...The insect knows nothing of its marvellous talents, just as the stomach knows nothing of its cu

s another; and for Fabre there is no transiti

s it is throughout the entire animal kingdom; and which in ourselves commands the profoundest part of our nature;

beautiful masterpieces, the comprehensive concept of the genius which rises spontaneousl

tations, the gropings, the uncertainties, the errors and tragic failures of human maternity, when

le and hesitating, how faltering and unequal is reason when it seeks to o

al dependence, that we owe this inexhaustible series of cunning industries and

it is more often than otherwise an animal fruit, a cof

r eggs are enclosed, "breaks at the caress of the

nging its hinder part into a pouch, comparable to that of the opossum, into which the egg

f ebony, whence an innumerable legion of vermin b

itself, at the moment of liberation, into two hemispheres "of a regularity so perfect tha

a rudiment of what we understand by conscious

the thistle, the Vanessa for the nettle, the Clytus for the ilex, and the Crioceris for the lily. "The weevil kn

so, and the golden rose-beetle, which "intoxicates itself at the clus

, forming little round corridors in which to lodge her offspring,

her family "at the least expense," and profits on occasion by galleries which have been mined by previous generations; adapt

ped by means of experience; they recognize "that which is most fitt

ry powdery dust and mixes it with saliva to convert it

dwelling-houses in order to shelter her nest of dried clay, which

the Scarabaeus sacer contrives a filter at the smaller end of its pear-shaped ball, by means of which the grub is able to breathe? or

Arachne clotho, which is furnished with a door, a true door "which she throws open with a pus

contact with the caterpillars, which, incompletely paralysed, are wriggling and writhing below"! Later, when the egg is hatched, "the filament is transformed into a tube, a place of refuge, up whic

ce), since it immediately intervenes if with the point of a penknife we open the roof of its nest and lay bare its egg. "The fragments raised by the knife are immediately brought together and soldered, so that no trace is left

rates to satiety, and his astonishing Necrophori, which adapt themselves so admirably to circumstances and triumph over the experimental

throws a fresh and unexpected light

e to throw a few scattered lights on the subject, and we possess only a few approximate data; which nevertheless a

d in all physiological and anatomical knowledge, and in

n the hollow of a bramble stump, the cavity of a reed, or the winding staircase of an empty snail-

ales requires an unequal provision of space and of nourishment for the future larvae. For the females, who exceed in point

searches for a dwelling, are often fortuitous and incapable of modification; and in order to give each set o

mia to commence her spawning with the males, instead of beginning with the females as nature requires, since the insect is primarily preoccupied with the more important sex, that which ensures par excellence the perpetuation of the species. He even forces the whole swarm which buzzes about his work-tables, his books, his bottles, and apparat

invisible"? Here again is one of those riddles of nature wh

s, and I should never be done were I to attempt to exhaust all the spectacles which he offers us. Let us descend yet another step, among creatur

k themselves to his fleece, and accompany him in all his peregrinations; but they quickly recognize their error; for these animated specks are well aware that the males, occupied all day long in scouring the country and pillaging the flowers, live exclusively out of doors, and would in no wise serve their end. But the moment comes when the Anthophora pays court to the fair sex, and the imperceptible creature immediately profits by the amorous encounter to change its winged courser. "These pigmies therefore have a memory, an e

tiny dwelling but we see this "nameless shape" for several days "anxiously wandering; it visits the top and bottom, the back, the front, the sides"; it makes the tour of its domain; "it searches in the darkness, palpitating, seeming

s instinct? And what intr

there are only two modes of life, instinct on the one hand and intelligence on the other, "when we know how subtle and illusive is this Proteus, and that there are not two things only, but a thous

ing not a line, not a hair; we may compare and measure every portion of the mouth, and define the class; and we shall not find a single point in all this physical architecture which will positively inform us of the habits of the insect. Of what account are a few slight differences? It is in the ph

insects are not, properly speaking, connected with the external and visible form of their organs

t physical modifications, which, when they do exist, are so slight always as to have escaped the most perfect observation, should have sufficed to determine the appearance of profoundly dissimilar faculties. Inexplicable abilities, unexpected hab

e soft down of hairy plants have the same claws, the same mandibles, composed of

strum as that which its congeners, so like it in conformation, emp

priate to its industry; "yet the perfectly circular fragments of l

he same utensils which in others are transformed into picks and mattocks to attack clay and

d the same structure, yet what inequality there is among t

by anatomical peculiarities th

ly different stomachic aptitudes; "the exclusive portion of the o

ism, and the Empusa its sobriety, its peaceableness, when their almost identical

f the interesting peculiarities which we observe in the habi

they may accumulate at leisure masses of details relating to this or that family or genus or individual; they may undertake the most subtle inquiries, may write thousand

feelings that animated it and gave it life. That which is crystallized in death cannot explain what was life. This is the th

sèn qu'emé

mort, creso

abiho e lou se

ittle sense

hand, to ma

bee, the secret of