And now, with the facts to support us, let us philosophize a little. We have here, recognized as of excellent standard by all the expert classifiers, so fastidious in the arrangement of their lists, a generic group, called Anthidium, containing two guilds of workers entirely dissimilar in character: the cotton-fullers and the resin-kneaders. It is even possible that other species, when their habits are better known, will come and increase this variety of manufactures. I confine myself to the little that I know and ask myself in what the manipulator of cotton differs from the manipulator of resin as regards tools, that is to say, organs. Certainly, when the genus Anthidium was set down by the classifiers, they were not wanting in scientific precision: they consulted, under the lens of the microscope, the wings, the mandibles, the legs, the harvesting-brush, in short, all the details calculated to assist the proper delimitation of the group. After this minute examination by the experts, if no organic differences stand revealed, the reason is that they do not exist. Any dissimilarity of structure could not escape the accurate eyes of our learned taxonomists. The genus, therefore, is indeed organically homogeneous; but industrially it is thoroughly heterogeneous. The implements are the same and the work is different.

That eminent Bordeaux entomologist, Professor Jean Perez, to whom I communicated the misgivings aroused in my mind by the contradictory nature of my discoveries, thinks that he has found the solution of the difficulty in the conformation of the mandibles. I extract the following passage from his volume, "Les Abeilles":

'The cotton-pressing females have the edge of their mandibles cut out into five or six little teeth, which make an instrument admirably suited for scraping and removing the hairs from the epidermis of the plants. It is a sort of comb or teasel. The resin-kneading females have the edge of the mandible not toothed, but simply curved; the tip alone, preceded by a notch which is pretty clearly marked in some species, forms a real tooth; but this tooth is blunt and does not project. The mandible, in short, is a kind of spoon perfectly fitted to remove the sticky matter and to shape it into a ball.'

Nothing better could be said to explain the two sorts of industry: in the one case, a rake which gathers the wool; in the other, a spoon which scoops up the resin. I should have left it at that and felt quite content without further investigation, if I had not had the curiosity to open my boxes and, in my turn, to take a good look, side by side, at the workers in cement and the workers in cotton. Allow me, my learned master, to whisper in your ear what I saw.

The first that I examine is Anthidium septemdentatum. A spoon: yes, it is just that. Powerful mandibles, shaped like an isosceles triangle, flat above, hollowed out below; and no indentations, none whatsoever. A splendid tool, as you say, for gathering the viscous pellet; quite as efficacious in its kind of work as is the rake of the toothed mandibles for gathering cotton. Here certainly is a creature potently-gifted, even though it be for a poor little task, the scooping up of two or three drops of glue.

Things are not quite so satisfactory with the second Resin-bee of the Snail-shells, A. bellicosum. I find that she has three teeth to her mandibles. Still, they are slight and project very little. Let us say that this does not count, even though the work is exactly the same. With A. quadrilobum the whole thing breaks down. She, the queen of Resin-bees; she, who collects a lump of mastic the size of one's fist, enough to subdivide hundreds of her kinswomen's Snail-shells: well, she, by way of a spoon, carries a rake! On the wide edges of her mandibles stand four teeth, as long and pointed as those of the most zealous cotton-gleaner. A. florentinum, that mighty manufacturer of cotton-goods, can hardly rival her in respect of combing-tools. And nevertheless, with her toothed implement, a sort of saw, the Resin-bee collects her great heap of pitch, load by load; and the material is carried not rigid, but sticky, half-fluid, so that it may amalgamate with the previous lots and be fashioned into cells.

A. Latreillii, without having a very large implement, also bears witness to the possibility of heaping up soft resin with a rake; she arms her mandibles with three or four sharply-cut teeth. In short, out of four Resin-bees, the only four that I know, one is armed with a spoon, if this expression be really suited to the tool's function; the three others are armed with a rake; and it so happens that the most copious heap of resin is just the work of the rake with the most teeth to it, a tool suited to the cotton-reapers, according to the views of the Bordeaux entomological expert.

No, the explanation that appealed to me so much at first is not admissible. The mandible, whether supplied with teeth or not, does not account at all for the two manufactures. May we, in this predicament, have recourse to the general structure of the insect, although this is not distinctive enough to be of much use to us? Not so either; for, in the same stone-heaps where the Osmia and the two Resin-bees of the Snail-shells work, I find from time to time another manipulator of mastic who bears no structural relationship whatever to the genus Anthidium. It is a small-sized Mason-wasp, Odynerus alpestris, SAUSS. She builds a very pretty nest with resin and gravel in the shells of the young Common Snail, of Helix nemoralis and sometimes of Bulimulus radiatus. I will describe her masterpiece on some other occasion. To one acquainted with the genus Odynerus, any comparison with the Anthidia would be an inexcusable error. In larval diet, in shape, in habits, they form two dissimilar groups, very far removed one from the other. The Anthidia feed their offspring on honey-bread; the Odyneri feed it on live prey. Well, with her slender form, her weakly frame, in which the most clear-seeing eye would seek in vain for a clue to the trade practised, the Alpine Odynerus, the game-lover, uses pitch in the same way as the stout and massive Resin-bee, the honey-lover. She even uses it better, for her mosaic of tiny pebbles is much prettier than the Bee's and no less solid. With her mandibles, this time neither spoon nor rake, but rather a long forceps slightly notched at the tip, she gathers her drop of sticky matter as dexterously as do her rivals with their very different outfit. Her case will, I think, persuade us that neither the shape of the tool nor the shape of the worker can explain the work done.

I will go further: I ask myself in vain the reason of this or that trade in the case of a fixed species. The Osmiae make their partitions with mud or with a paste of chewed leaves; the Mason-bees build with cement; the Pelopaeus-wasps fashion clay pots; the Megachiles made disks cut from leaves into urns; the Anthidia felt cotton into purses; the Resin-bees cement together little bits of gravel with gum; the Carpenter-bees and the Lithurgi bore holes in timber; the Anthophorae tunnel the roadside slopes. Why all these different trades, to say nothing of the others? How are they prescribed for the insect, this one rather than that?

I foresee the answer: they are prescribed by the organization. An insect excellently equipped for gathering and felting cotton is ill-equipped for cutting leaves, kneading mud or mixing resin. The tool in its possession decides its trade.

This is a very simple explanation, I admit, and one within the scope of everybody: in itself a sufficient recommendation for any one who has neither the inclination nor the time to undertake a more thorough investigation. The popularity of certain speculative views is due entirely to the easy food which they provide for our curiosity. They save us much long and often irksome study; they impart a veneer of general knowledge. There is nothing that achieves such immediate success as an explanation of the riddle of the universe in a word or two. The thinker does not travel so fast: content to know little so that he may know something, he limits his field of search and is satisfied with a scanty harvest, provided that the grain be of good quality. Before agreeing that the tool determines the trade, he wants to see things with his own eyes; and what he observes is far from confirming the sweeping statement. Let us share his doubts for a moment and look into matters more closely.

Franklin left us a maxim which is much to the point here. He said that a good workman should be able to plane with a saw and to saw with a plane. The insect is too good a workman not to follow the advice of the sage of Boston. Its industry abounds in instances where the plane takes the place of the saw, or the saw of the plane; its dexterity makes good the inadequacy of the implement. To go no further, have we not just seen different artisans collecting and using pitch, some with spoons, others with rakes, others again with pincers? Therefore, with such equipment as it possesses, the insect would be capable of abandoning cotton for leaves, leaves for resin, resin for mortar, if some predisposition of talent did not make it keep to its speciality.

These few lines, which are the outcome not of a heedless pen but of mature reflection, will set people talking of hateful paradoxes. We will let them talk and we will submit the following proposition to our adversaries: take an entomologist of the highest merit, a Latreille (Pierre Andre Latreille (1762-1833), one of the founders of modern entomological science.—Translator's Note.), for instance, versed in all the details of the structure of insects but utterly unacquainted with their habits. He knows the dead insect better than anybody, but he has never occupied himself with the living insect. As a classifier, he is beyond compare; and that is all. We ask him to examine a Bee, the first that comes to hand, and to name her trade from her tools.

Come, be honest: could he? Who would dare put him to such a test? Has personal experience not fully convinced us that the mere examination of the insect can tell us nothing about its particular industry? The baskets on its legs and the brush on its abdomen will certainly inform us that it collects honey and pollen; but its special art will remain an utter secret, notwithstanding all the scrutiny of the microscope. In our own industries, the plane denotes the joiner, the trowel the mason, the scissors the tailor, the needle the seamstress. Are things the same in animal industry? Just show us, if you please, the trowel that is a certain sign of the mason-insect, the chisel that is a positive characteristic of the carpenter-insect, the iron that is an authentic mark of the pinking-insect; and as you show them, say:

'This one cuts leaves; that one bores wood; that other mixes cement.'

And so on, specifying the trade from the tool.

You cannot do it, no one can; the worker's speciality remains an impenetrable secret until direct observation intervenes. Does not this incapacity, even of the most expert, proclaim loudly that animal industry, in its infinite variety, is due to other causes besides the possession of tools? Certainly, each of those specialists requires implements; but they are rough and ready implements, good for all sorts of purposes, like the tool of Franklin's workman. The same notched mandible that reaps cotton, cuts leaves and moulds pitch also kneads mud, scrapes decayed wood and mixes mortar; the same tarsus that manufactures cotton and disks cut out of leaves is no less clever at the art of making earthen partitions, clay turrets and gravel mosaics.

What then is the reason of these thousand industries? In the light of facts, I can see but one: imagination governing matter. A primordial inspiration, a talent antecedent to the actual form, directs the tool instead of being subordinate to it. The instrument does not determine the manner of industry; the tool does not make the workman. At the beginning there is an object, a plan, in view of which the animal acts, unconsciously. Have we eyes to see with, or do we see because we have eyes? Does the function create the organ, or the organ the function? Of the two alternatives, the insect proclaims the first. It says:

'My industry is not imposed upon me by the implement which I possess; what I do is to use the implement, such as it is, for the talent with which I am gifted.'

It says to us, in its own way:

'The function has determined the organ; vision is the reason of the eye.'

In short, it repeats to us Virgil's profound reflection:

'Mens agitat molem'; 'Mind moves matter.'



CHAPTER 11. THE POISON OF THE BEE.

I have discussed elsewhere the stings administered by the Wasps to their prey. Now chemistry comes and puts a spoke in the wheel of our arguments, telling us that the poison of the Bees is not the same as that of the Wasps. The Bees' is complex and formed of two elements, acid and alkaline. The Wasps' possess only the acid element; and it is to this very acidity and not to the 'so-called' skill of the operators that the preservation of the provisions is due. (The author's numerous essays on the Wasps will form the contents of later works. In the meantime, cf. "Insect Life," by J.H. Fabre, translated by the author of "Mademoiselle Mori": chapters 4 to 12, and 14 to 18; and "The Life and Love of the Insect," by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapters 11, 12 and 17.—Translator's Note.)

Admitting that there is a difference in the nature of the venom, I fail to see that this has any bearing on the problem in hand. I can inoculate with various liquids—acids, weak nitric acid, alkalis, ammonia, neutral bodies, spirits of wine, essence of turpentine—and obtain conditions similar to those of the victims of the predatory insects, that is to say, inertia with the persistence of a dull vitality betrayed by the movements of the mouth-parts and antennae. I am not, of course, invariably successful, for there is neither delicacy nor precision in my poisoned needle and the wound which it makes does not bear comparison with the tiny puncture of the unerring natural sting; but, after all, it is repeated often enough to put the object of my experiment beyond doubt. I should add that, to achieve success, we must have a subject with a concentrated ganglionic column, such as the Weevil, the Buprestis, the Dung-beetle and others. Paralysis is then obtained with but a single prick, made at the point which the Cerceris has revealed to us, the point at which the corselet joins the rest of the thorax. In that case, the least possible quantity of the acrid liquid is instilled, a quantity too small to endanger the patient's life. With scattered nervous centres, each requiring a separate operation, this method is impracticable: the victim would die of the excess of corrosive fluid. I am quite ashamed to have to recall these old experiments. Had they been resumed and carried on by others of greater authority than I, we should have escaped the objections of chemistry.

When light is so easy to obtain, why go in search of scientific obscurity? Why talk of acid or alkaline reactions, which prove nothing, when it is so simple to have recourse to facts, which prove everything? Before declaring that the hunting insects' poison has preservative properties merely because of its acid qualities, it would have been well to enquire if the sting of a Bee, with its acid and its alkali, could not perchance produce the same effects as that of the paralyser, whose skill is categorically denied. The chemists never gave this a thought. Simplicity is not always welcome in our laboratories. It is my duty to repair that little omission. I propose to enquire if the poison of the Bee, the chief of the Apidae, is suitable for a surgery that paralyses without killing.

The enquiry bristles with difficulties, though this is no reason for abandoning it. First and foremost, I cannot possibly operate with the Bee just as I catch her. Time after time I make the attempt, without once succeeding; and patience becomes exhausted. The sting has to penetrate at a definite point, exactly where the Wasp's sting would have entered. My intractable captive tosses about angrily and stings at random, never where I wish. My fingers get hurt even oftener than the patient. I have only one means of gaining a little control over the indomitable dart; and that is to cut off the Bee's abdomen with my scissors, to seize the stump instantly with a fine forceps and to apply the tip at the spot where the sting is to enter.

Everybody knows that the Bee's abdomen needs no orders from the head to go on drawing its weapon for a few instants longer and to avenge the deceased before being itself overcome with death's inertia. This vindictive persistency serves me to perfection. There is another circumstance in my favour: the barbed sting remains where it is, which enables me to ascertain the exact spot pierced. A needle withdrawn as soon as inserted would leave me doubtful. I can also, when the transparency of the tissues permits, perceive the direction of the weapon, whether perpendicular and favourable to my plans, or slanting and therefore valueless. Those are the advantages.

The disadvantages are these: the amputated abdomen, though more tractable than the entire Bee, is still far from satisfying my wishes. It gives capricious starts and unexpected pricks. I want it to sting here. No, it balks my forceps and goes and stings elsewhere: not very far away, I admit; but it takes so little to miss the nerve-centre which we wish to get at. I want it to go in perpendicularly. No, in the great majority of cases it enters obliquely and passes only through the epidermis. This is enough to show how many failures are needed to make one success.

Nor is this all. I shall be telling nobody anything new when I recall the fact that the Bee's sting is very painful. That of the hunting insects, on the contrary, is in most cases insignificant. My skin, which is no less sensitive than another's, pays no attention to it: I handle Sphex, Ammophilae and Scoliae without heeding their lancet-pricks. I have said this before; I remind the reader of it because of the matter in hand. In the absence of well-known chemical or other properties, we have really but one means of comparing the two respective poisons; and that is the amount of pain produced. All the rest is mystery. Besides, no poison, not even that of the Rattlesnake, has hitherto revealed the cause of its dread effects.

Acting, therefore, under the instruction of that one guide, pain, I place the Bee's sting far above that of the predatory insects as an offensive weapon. A single one of its thrusts must equal and often surpass in efficaciousness the repeated wounds of the other. For all these reasons—an excessive display of energy; the variable quantity of the virus inoculated by a wriggling abdomen which no longer measures the emission by doses; a sting which I cannot direct as I please; a wound which may be deep or superficial, the weapon entering perpendicularly or obliquely, touching the nerve-centres or affecting only the surrounding tissues—my experiments ought to produce the most varied results.

I obtain, in fact, every possible kind of disorder: ataxy, temporary disablement, permanent disablement, complete paralysis, partial paralysis. Some of my stricken victims recover; others die after a brief interval. It would be an unnecessary waste of space to record in this volume my hundred and one attempts. The details would form tedious reading and be of very little advantage, as in this sort of study it is impossible to marshal one's facts with any regularity. I will, therefore, sum them up in a few examples.

A colossal member of the Grasshopper tribe, the most powerful in my district, Decticus verrucivorus (This Decticus has received its specific name of verrucivorus, or Wart-eating, because it is employed by the peasants in Sweden and elsewhere to bite off the warts on their fingers.—Translator's Note.), is pricked at the base of the neck, on the line of the fore-legs, at the median point. The prick goes straight down. The spot is the same as that pierced by the sting of the slayer of Crickets and Ephippigers. (A species of Green Grasshopper. The Sphex paralyses Crickets and Grasshoppers to provide food for her grubs. Cf. "Insect Life": chapters 6 to 12.—Translator's Note.) The giantess, as soon as stung, kicks furiously, flounders about, falls on her side and is unable to get up again. The fore-legs are paralysed; the others are capable of moving. Lying sideways, if not interfered with, the insect in a few moments gives no signs of life beyond a fluttering of the antennae and palpi, a pulsation of the abdomen and a convulsive uplifting of the ovipositor; but, if irritated with a slight touch, it stirs its four hind-legs, especially the third pair, those with the big thighs, which kick vigorously. Next day, the condition is much the same, with an aggravation of the paralysis, which has now attacked the middle-legs. On the day after that, the legs do not move, but the antennae, the palpi and the ovipositor continue to flutter actively. This is the condition of the Ephippiger stabbed three times in the thorax by the Languedocian Sphex. One point alone is missing, a most important point: the long persistence of a remnant of life. In fact, on the fourth day, the Decticus is dead; her dark colour tells me so.

There are two conclusions to be drawn from this experiment and it is well to emphasise them. First, the Bee's poison is so active that a single dagger-thrust aimed at a nervous centre kills in four days one of the largest of the Orthoptera (An order of insects including the Grasshoppers, Locusts, Cockroaches, Mantes and Earwigs, in addition to the Stick- and Leaf-insects, Termites, Dragon-flies, May-flies, Book-lice and others.—Translator's Note.), though an insect of powerful constitution. Secondly, the paralysis at first affects only the legs whose ganglion is attacked; next, it spreads slowly to the second pair; lastly, it reaches the third. The local effect is diffused. This diffusion, which might well take place in the victims of the predatory insects, plays no part in the latters' method of operation. The egg, which will be laid immediately afterwards, demands the complete inertia of the prey from the outset. Hence all the nerve-centres that govern locomotion must be numbed instantaneously by the virus.

I can now understand why the poison of the predatory Wasps is comparatively painless in its effects. If it possessed the strength of that of the Bee, a single stab would impair the vitality of the prey, while leaving it for some days capable of violent movements that would be very dangerous to the huntress and especially to the egg. More moderate in its action, it is instilled at the different nervous centres, as is the case more particularly with the caterpillars. (Caterpillars are the prey of the Ammophila, which administers a separate stab to each of the several ganglia.—Translator's Note.) In this way, the requisite immobility is obtained at once; and, notwithstanding the number of wounds, the victim is not a speedy corpse. To the marvels of the paralysers' talent we must add one more: their wonderful poison, the strength of which is regulated by delicate doses. The Bee revenging herself intensifies the virulence of her poison; the Sphex putting her grubs' provender to sleep weakens it, reduces it to what is strictly necessary.

One more instance of nearly the same kind. I prefer to take my subjects from among the Orthoptera, which, owing to their imposing size and the thinness of their skin at the points to be attacked, lend themselves better than other insects to my delicate manipulations. The armour of a Buprestis, the fat blubber of a Rosechafer-grub, the contortions of a caterpillar present almost insuperable obstacles to the success of a sting which it is not in my power to direct. The insect which I now offer to the Bee's lancet is the Great Green Grasshopper (Locusta viridissima), the adult female. The prick is given in the median line of the fore-legs.

The effect is overwhelming. For two or three seconds the insect writhes in convulsions and then falls on its side, motionless throughout, save in the ovipositor and the antennae. Nothing stirs so long as the creature is left alone; but, if I tickle it with a hair-pencil, the four hind-legs move sharply and grip the point. As for the fore-legs, smitten in their nerve-centre, they are quite lifeless. The same condition is maintained for three days longer. On the fifth day, the creeping paralysis leaves nothing free but the antennae waving to and fro and the abdomen throbbing and lifting up the ovipositor. On the sixth, the Grasshopper begins to turn brown; she is dead. Except that the vestige of life is more persistent, the case is the same as that of the Decticus. If we can prolong the duration, we shall have the victim of the Sphex.

But first let us look into the effect of a prick administered elsewhere than opposite the thoracic ganglia. I cause a female Ephippiger to be stung in the abdomen, about the middle of the lower surface. The patient does not seem to trouble greatly about her wound: she clambers gallantly up the sides of the bell-jar under which I have placed her; she goes on hopping as before. Better still, she sets about browsing the vine-leaf which I have given her for her consolation. A few hours pass and the whole thing is forgotten. She has made a rapid and complete recovery.

A second is wounded in three places on the abdomen: in the middle and on either side. On the first day, the insect seems to have felt nothing; I see no sign of stiffness in its movements. No doubt it is suffering acutely; but these stoics keep their troubles to themselves. Next day, the Ephippiger drags her legs a little and walks somewhat slowly. Two days more; and, when laid on her back, she is unable to turn over. On the fifth day, she succumbs. This time, I have exceeded the dose; the shock of receiving three stabs was too much for her.

And so with the others, down to the sensitive Cricket, who, pricked once in the abdomen, recovers in one day from the painful experience and goes back to her lettuce-leaf. But, if the wound is repeated a few times, death ensues within a more or less short period. I make an exception, among those who pay tribute to my cruel curiosity, of the Rosechafer-grubs, who defy three and four needle-thrusts. They will collapse suddenly and lie outstretched, flabby and lifeless; and, just when I am thinking them dead or paralysed, the hardy creatures will recover consciousness, move along on their backs (This is the usual mode of progression of the Cetonia- or Rosechafer-grub. Cf. "The Life and Love of the Insect": chapter 11.—Translator's Note.), bury themselves in the mould. I can obtain no precise information from them. True, their thinly scattered cilia and their breastplate of fat form a palisade and a rampart against the sting, which nearly always enters only a little way and that obliquely.

Let us leave these unmanageable ones and keep to the Orthoperon, which is more amenable to experiment. A dagger-thrust, we were saying, kills it if directed upon the ganglia of the thorax; it throws it into a transient state of discomfort if directed upon another point. It is, therefore, by its direct action upon the nervous centres that the poison reveals its formidable properties.

To generalize and say that death is always near at hand when the sting is administered in the thoracic ganglia would be going too far: it occurs frequently, but there are a good many exceptions, resulting from circumstances impossible to define. I cannot control the direction of the sting, the depth attained, the quantity of poison shed; and the stump of the Bee is very far from making up for my shortcomings. We have here not the cunning sword-play of the predatory insect, but a casual blow, ill-placed and ill-regulated. Any accident is possible, therefore, from the gravest to the mildest. Let us mention some of the more interesting.

An adult Praying Mantis (Mantis religiosa, so-called because the toothed fore-legs, in which it catches and kills its prey, adopt, when folded, an attitude resembling that of prayer.—Translator's Note.) is pricked level with the attachment of the predatory legs. Had the wound been in the centre, I should have witnessed an occurrence which, although I have seen it many times, still arouses my liveliest emotion and surprise. This is the sudden paralysis of the warrior's savage harpoons. No machinery stops more abruptly when the mainspring breaks. As a rule, the inertia of the predatory legs attacks the others in the course of a day or two; and the palsied one dies in less than a week. But the present sting is not in the exact centre. The dart has entered near the base of the right leg, at less than a millimetre (.039 inch.—Translator's Note.) from the median point. That leg is paralysed at once; the other is not; and the insect employs it to the detriment of my unsuspecting fingers, which are pricked to bleeding-point by the spike at the tip. Not until to-morrow is the leg which wounded me to-day rendered motionless. This time, the paralysis goes no farther. The Mantis moves along quite well, with her corselet proudly raised, in her usual attitude; but the predatory fore-arms, instead of being folded against the chest, ready for attack, hang lifeless and open. I keep the cripple for twelve days longer, during which she refuses all nourishment, being incapable of using her tongs to seize the prey and lift it to her mouth. The prolonged abstinence kills her.

Some suffer from locomotor ataxy. My notes recall an Ephippiger who, pricked in the prothorax away from the median line, retained the use of her six limbs without being able to walk or climb for lack of co-ordination in her movements. A singular awkwardness left her wavering between going back and going forward, between turning to the right and turning to the left.

Some are smitten with semiparalysis. A Cetonia-grub, pricked away from the centre on a level with the fore-legs, has her right side flaccid, spread out, incapable of contracting, while the left side swells, wrinkles and contracts. Since the left half no longer receives the symmetrical cooperation of the right half, the grub, instead of curling into the normal volute, closes its spiral on one side and leaves it wide open on the other. The concentration of the nervous apparatus, poisoned by the venom down one side of the body only, a longitudinal half, explains this condition, which is the most remarkable of all.

There is nothing to be gained by multiplying these examples. We have seen pretty clearly the great variety of results produced by the haphazard sting of a Bee's abdomen; let us now come to the crux of the matter. Can the Bee's poison reduce the prey to the condition required by the predatory Wasp? Yes, I have proved it by experiment; but the proof calls for so much patience that it seemed to me to suffice when obtained once for each species. In such difficult conditions, with a poison of excessive strength, a single success is conclusive proof; the thing is possible so long as it occurs once.

A female Ephippiger is stung at the median point, just a little in front of the fore-legs. Convulsive movements lasting for a few seconds are followed by a fall to one side, with pulsations of the abdomen, flutterings of the antennae and a few feeble movements of the legs. The tarsi cling firmly to the hair-pencil which I hold out to them. I place the insect on its back. It lies motionless. Its state is absolutely the same as that to which the Languedocian Sphex (Cf. "Insect Life": chapter 10.—Translator's Note.) reduces her Ephippigers. For three weeks on end, I see repeated in all its details the spectacle to which I have been accustomed in the victims extracted from the burrows or taken from the huntress: the wide-open mandibles, the quivering palpi and tarsi, the ovipositor shuddering convulsively, the abdomen throbbing at long intervals, the spark of life rekindled at the touch of a pencil. In the fourth week, these signs of life, which have gradually weakened, disappear, but the insect still remains irreproachably fresh. At last a month passes; and the paralysed creature begins to turn brown. It is over; death has come.

I have the same success with a Cricket and also with a Praying Mantis. In all three cases, from the point of view of long-maintained freshness and of the signs of life proved by slight movements, the resemblance between my victim and those of the predatory insects is so great that no Sphex and no Tachytes would have disowned the product of my devices. My Cricket, my Ephippiger, my Mantis had the same freshness as theirs; they preserved it as theirs did for a period amply sufficient to allow of the grubs' complete evolution. They proved to me, in the most conclusive manner, they prove to all whom it may interest, that the poison of the Bees, leaving its hideous violence on one side, does not differ in its effects from the poison of the predatory Wasps. Are they alkaline or acid? The question is an idle one in this connection. Both of them intoxicate, derange, torpify the nervous centres and thus produce either death or paralysis, according to the method of inoculation. For the moment, that is all. No one is yet able to say the last word on the actions of those poisons, so terrible in infinitesimal doses. But on the point under discussion we need no longer be ignorant: the Wasp owes the preservation of her grub's provisions not to any special qualities of her poison but to the extreme precision of her surgery.

A last and more plausible objection is that raised by Darwin when he said that there were no fossil remains of instincts. And, if there were, O master, what would they teach us? Not very much more than what we learn from the instincts of to-day. Does not the geologist make the erstwhile carcases live anew in our minds in the light of the world as we see it? With nothing but analogy to guide them, he describes how some saurian lived in the jurassic age; there are no fossil remains of habits, but nevertheless he can tell us plenty about them, things worthy of credence, because the present teaches him the past. Let us do a little as he does.

I will suppose a precursor of the Calicurgi (The Calicurgus, or Pompilus, is a Hunting Wasp, feeding her larvae on Spiders. Cf. "The Life and Love of the Insect": chapter 12.—Translator's Note.) dwelling in the prehistoric coal-forests. Her prey was some hideous Scorpion, that first-born of the Arachnida. How did the Hymenopteron master the terrible prey? Analogy tells us, by the methods of the present slayer of Tarantulae. It disarmed the adversary; it paralysed the venomous sting by a stroke administered at a point which we could determine for certain by the animal's anatomy. Unless this was the way it happened, the assailant must have perished, first stabbed and then devoured by the prey. There is no getting away from it: either the precursor of the Calicurgi, that slaughterer of Scorpions, knew her trade thoroughly, or else the continuation of her race became impossible, even as it would be impossible to keep up the race of the Tarantula-killer without the dagger-thrust that paralyses the Spider's poison-fangs. The first who, greatly daring, pinked the Scorpion of the coal-seams was already an expert fencer; the first to come to grips with the Tarantula had an unerring knowledge of her dangerous surgery. The least hesitation, the slightest speculation; and they were lost. The first teacher would also have been the last, with no disciples to take up her work and perfect it.

But fossil instincts, they insist, would show us intermediary stages, first, second and third rungs; they would show us the gradual passing from the casual and very incorrect attempt to the perfect practice, the fruit of the ages; with their accidental differences, they would give us terms of comparison wherewith to trace matters from the simple to the complex. Never mind about that, my masters: if you want varied instincts in which to seek the source of the complex by means of the simple, it is not necessary to search the foliations of the coal-seams and the successive layers of the rocks, those archives of the prehistoric world; the present day affords to contemplation an inexhaustible treasury realizing perhaps everything that can emerge from the limbo of possibility. In what will soon be half a century of study, I have caught but a tiny glimpse of a very tiny corner of the realm of instinct; and the harvest gathered overwhelms me with its variety: I do not yet know two species of predatory Wasps whose methods are exactly the same.

One gives a single stroke of the dagger, a second two, a third three, a fourth nine or ten. One stabs here and the other there; and neither is imitated by the next, who attacks elsewhere. This one injures the cephalic centres and produces death; that one respects them and produces paralysis. Some squeeze the cervical ganglia to obtain a temporary torpor; others know nothing of the effects of compressing the brain. A few make the prey disgorge, lest its honey should poison the offspring; the majority do not resort to preventive manipulations. Here are some that first disarm the foe, who carries poisoned daggers; yonder are others and more numerous, who have no precautions to take before murdering the unarmed prey. In the preliminary struggle, I know some who grab their victims by the neck, by the rostrum, by the antennae, by the caudal threads; I know some who throw them on their backs, some who lift them breast to breast, some who operate on them in the vertical position, some who attack them lengthwise and crosswise, some who climb on their backs or on their abdomens, some who press on their backs to force out a pectoral fissure, some who open their desperately contracted coil, using the tip of the abdomen as a wedge. And so I could go on indefinitely: every method of fencing is employed. What could I not also say about the egg, slung pendulum-fashion by a thread from the ceiling, when the live provisions are wriggling underneath; laid on a scanty mouthful, a solitary opening dish, when the dead prey requires renewing from day to-day; entrusted to the last joint stored away, when the victuals are paralysed; fixed at a precise spot, entailing the least danger to the consumer and the game, when the corpulent prey has to be devoured with a special art that warrants its freshness!

Well, how can this multitude of varied instincts teach us anything about gradual transformation? Will the one and only dagger-thrust of the Cerceris and the Scolia take us to the two thrusts of the Calicurgus, to the three thrusts of the Sphex, to the manifold thrust of the Ammophila? Yes, if we consider only numerical progression. One and one are two; two and one are three: so run the figures. But is this what we want to know? What has arithmetic to do with the case? Is not the whole problem subordinate to a condition that cannot be translated into cyphers? As the prey changes, the anatomy changes; and the surgeon always operates with a complete understanding of his subject. The single dagger-thrust is administered to ganglia collected into a common cluster; the manifold thrusts are distributed over the scattered ganglia; of the two thrusts of the Tarantula-huntress, one disarms and the other paralyses. And so with the others: that is to say, the instinct is directed each time by the secrets of the nervous organism. There is a perfect harmony between the operation and the patient's anatomy.

The single stroke of the Scolia is no less wonderful than the repeated strokes of the Ammophila. Each has her appointed game and each slays it by a method as rational as any that our own science could invent. In the presence of this consummate knowledge, which leaves us utterly confounded, what a poor argument is that of 1 + 1 = 2! And what is that progress by units to us? The universe is mirrored in a drop of water; universal logic flashes into sight in a single sting.

Besides, push on the pitiful argument. One leads to two, two lead to three. Granted without dispute. And then? We will accept the Scolia as the pioneer, the foundress of the first principles of the art. The simplicity of her method justifies our supposition. She learns her trade in some way or other, by accident; she knows supremely well how to paralyse her Cetonia-grub with a single dagger-thrust driven into the thorax. One day, through some fortuitous circumstance, or rather by mistake, she takes it into her head to strike two blows. As one is enough for the Cetonia, the repetition was of no value unless there was a change of prey. What was the new victim submitted to the butcher's knife? Apparently, a large Spider, since the Tarantula and the Garden Spider call for two thrusts. And the prentice Scolia, who used at first to sting under the throat, had the skill, at her first attempt, to begin by disarming her adversary and then to go quite low down, almost to the end of the thorax, to strike the vital point. I am utterly incredulous as to her success. I see her eaten up if her lancet swerves and hits the wrong spot. Let us look impossibility boldly in the face and admit that she succeeds. I then see the offspring, which have no recollection of the fortunate event save through the belly—and then we are postulating that the digestion of the carnivorous larva leaves a trace in the memory of the honey-sipping insect—I see the offspring, I say, obliged to wait at long intervals for that inspired double thrust and obliged to succeed each time under pain of death for them and their descendants. To accept this host of impossibilities exceeds all my faculties of belief. One leads to two, no doubt; the Ssingle blow of the predatory Wasp will never lead to the blow twice delivered.

In order to live, we all require the conditions that enable us to live: this is a truth worthy of the famous axioms of La Palice. (Jacques de Chabannes, Seigneur de La Palice [circa 1470-1525]), was a French captain killed at the battle of Pavia. His soldiers made up in his honour a ballad, two lines of which, translated, run:

Fifteen minutes before he died, He was still alive.

(Hence the French expression, une verite de La Palice, meaning an obvious truth.—Translator's Note.)

The predatory insects live by their talent. If they do not possess it to perfection, their race is lost. Hidden in the murk of the past ages, the argument based upon the non-existence of fossil instinct is no better able than the others to withstand the light of living realities; it crumbles under the stroke of fate; it vanishes before a La Palice platitude.



CHAPTER 12. THE HALICTI: A PARASITE.

Do you know the Halicti? Perhaps not. There is no great harm done: it is quite possible to enjoy the few sweets of existence without knowing the Halicti. Nevertheless, when questioned persistently, these humble creatures with no history can tell us some very singular things; and their acquaintance is not to be disdained if we would enlarge our ideas upon the bewildering swarm of this world. Since we have nothing better to do, let us look into the Halicti. They are worth the trouble.

How shall we recognize them? They are manufacturers of honey, generally longer and slighter than the Bee of our hives. They constitute a numerous group that varies greatly in size and colouring. Some there are that exceed the dimensions of the Common Wasp; others might be compared with the House-fly, or are even smaller. In the midst of this variety, which is the despair of the novice, one characteristic remains invariable. Every Halictus carries the clearly-written certificate of her guild.

Examine the last ring, at the tip of the abdomen, on the dorsal surface. If your capture be an Halictus, there will be here a smooth and shiny line, a narrow groove along which the sting slides up and down when the insect is on the defensive. This slide for the unsheathed weapon denotes some member of the Halictus tribe, without distinction of size or colour. No elsewhere, in the sting-bearing order, is this original sort of groove in use. It is the distinctive mark, the emblem of the family.

Three Halicti will appear before you in this biographical fragment. Two of them are my neighbours, my familiars, who rarely fail to settle each year in the best parts of the enclosure. They occupied the ground before I did; and I should not dream of evicting them, persuaded as I am that they will well repay my indulgence. Their proximity, which allows me to visit them daily at my leisure, is a piece of good luck. Let us profit by it.

At the head of my three subjects is the Zebra Halictus (H. zebrus, WALCK.), which is beautifully belted around her long abdomen with alternate black and pale-russet scarves. Her slender shape, her size, which equals that of the Common Wasp, her simple and pretty dress, combine to make her the chief representative of the genus here.

She establishes her galleries in firm soil, where there is no danger of landslips which would interfere with the work at nesting-time. In my garden, the well-levelled paths, made of a mixture of tiny pebbles and red clayey earth, suits her to perfection. Every spring she takes possession of it, never alone, but in gangs whose number varies greatly, amounting sometimes to as many as a hundred. In this way she founds what may be described as small townships, each clearly marked out and distant from the other, in which the joint possession of the site in no way entails joint work.

Each has her home, an inviolable manor which none but the owner has the right to enter. A sound buffeting would soon call to order any adventuress who dared to make her way into another's dwelling. No such indiscretion is suffered among the Halicti. Let each keep to her own place and to herself and perfect peace will reign in this new-formed society, made up of neighbours and not of fellow-workers.

Operations begin in April, most unobtrusively, the only sign of the underground works being the little mounds of fresh earth. There is no animation in the building-yards. The labourers show themselves very seldom, so busy are they at the bottom of their pits. At moments, here and there, the summit of a tiny mole-hill begins to totter and tumbles down the slopes of the cone: it is a worker coming up with her armful of rubbish and shooting it outside, without showing herself in the open. Nothing more for the moment.

There is one precaution to be taken: the villages must be protected against the passers-by, who might inadvertently trample them under foot. I surround each of them with a palisade of reed-stumps. In the centre I plant a danger-signal, a post with a paper flag. The sections of the paths thus marked are forbidden ground; none of the household will walk upon them.

May arrives, gay with flowers and sunshine. The navvies of April have turned themselves into harvesters. At every moment I see them settling, all befloured with yellow, atop of the mole-hills now turned into craters. Let us first look into the question of the house. The arrangement of the home will give us some useful information. A spade and a three-pronged fork place the insect's crypts before our eyes.

A shaft as nearly vertical as possible, straight or winding according to the exigencies of a soil rich in flinty remains, descends to a depth of between eight and twelve inches. As it is merely a passage in which the only thing necessary is that the Halictus should find an easy support in coming and going, this long entrance-hall is rough and uneven. A regular shape and a polished surface would be out of place here. These artistic refinements are reserved for the apartments of her young. All that the Halictus mother asks is that the passage should be easy to go up and down, to ascend or descend in a hurry. And so she leaves it rugged. Its width is about that of a thick lead-pencil.

Arranged one by one, horizontally and at different heights, the cells occupy the basement of the house. They are oval cavities, three-quarters of an inch long, dug out of the clay mass. They end in a short bottle-neck that widens into a graceful mouth. They look like tiny vaccine-phials laid on their sides. All of them open into the passage.

The inside of these little cells has the gloss and polish of a stucco which our most experienced plasterers might envy. It is diapered with faint longitudinal, diamond-shaped marks. These are the traces of the polishing-tool that has given the last finish to the work. What can this polisher be? None other than the tongue, that is obvious. The Halictus has made a trowel of her tongue and licked the wall daintily and methodically in order to polish it.

This final glazing, so exquisite in its perfection, is preceded by a trimming-process. In the cells that are not yet stocked with provisions, the walls are dotted with tiny dents like those in a thimble. Here we recognize the work of the mandibles, which squeeze the clay with their tips, compress it and purge it of any grains of sand. The result is a milled surface whereon the polished layer will find a solid adhesive base. This layer is obtained with a fine clay, very carefully selected by the insect, purified, softened and then applied atom by atom, after which the trowel of the tongue steps in, diapering and polishing, while saliva, disgorged as needed, gives pliancy to the paste and finally dries into a waterproof varnish.

The humidity of the subsoil, at the time of the spring showers, would reduce the little earthen alcove to a sort of pap. The coating of saliva is an excellent preservative against this danger. It is so delicate that we suspect rather than see it; but its efficacy is none the less evident. I fill a cell with water. The liquid remains in it quite well, without any trace of infiltration.

The tiny pitcher looks as if it were varnished with galenite. The impermeability which the potter obtains by the brutal infusion of his mineral ingredients the Halictus achieves with the soft polisher of her tongue moistened with saliva. Thus protected, the larva will enjoy all the advantages of a dry berth, even in rain-soaked ground.

Should the wish seize us, it is easy to detach the waterproof film, at least in shreds. Take the little shapeless lump in which a cell has been excavated and put it in sufficient water to cover the bottom of it. The whole earthy mass will soon be soaked and reduced to a mud which we are able to sweep with the point of a hair-pencil. Let us have patience and do our sweeping gently; and we shall be able to separate from the main body the fragments of a sort of extremely fine satin. This transparent, colourless material is the upholstery that keeps out the wet. The Spider's web, if it formed a stuff and not a net, is the only thing that could be compared with it.

The Halictus' nurseries are, as we see, structures that take much time in the making. The insect first digs in the clayey earth a recess with an oval curve to it. It has its mandibles for a pick-axe and its tarsi, armed with tiny claws, for rakes. Rough though it be, this early work presents difficulties, for the Bee has to do her excavating in a narrow gully, where there is only just room for her to pass.

The rubbish soon becomes cumbersome. The insect collects it and then, moving backwards, with its fore-legs closed over the load, it hoists it up through the shaft and flings it outside, upon the mole-hill, which rises by so much above the threshold of the burrow. Next come the dainty finishing-touches: the milling of the wall, the application of a glaze of better-quality clay, the assiduous polishing with the long-suffering tongue, the waterproof coating and the jarlike mouth, a masterpiece of pottery in which the stopping-plug will be fixed when the time comes for locking the door of the room. And all this has to be done with mathematical precision.

No, because of this perfection, the grubs' chambers could never be work done casually from day to day, as the ripe eggs descend from the ovaries. They are prepared long beforehand, during the bad weather, at the end of March and in April, when flowers are scarce and the temperature subject to sudden changes. This thankless period, often cold, liable to hail-storms, is spent in making ready the home. Alone at the bottom of her shaft, which she rarely leaves, the mother works at her children's apartments, lavishing upon them those finishing-touches which leisure allows. They are completed, or very nearly, when May comes with the radiant sunshine and wealth of flowers.

We see the evidence of these long preparations in the burrows themselves, if we inspect them before the provisions are brought. All of them show us cells, about a dozen in number, quite finished, but still empty. To begin by getting all the huts built is a sensible precaution: the mother will not have to turn aside from the delicate task of harvesting and egg-laying in order to perform rough navvy's work.

Everything is ready by May. The air is balmy; the smiling lawns are gay with a thousand little flowers, dandelions, rock-roses, tansies and daisies, among which the harvesting Bee rolls gleefully, covering herself with pollen. With her crop full of honey and the brushes of her legs befloured, the Halictus returns to her village. Flying very low, almost level with the ground, she hesitates, with sudden turns and bewildered movements. It seems that the weak-sighted insect finds its way with difficulty among the cottages of its little township.

Which is its mole-hill among the many others near, all similar in appearance? It cannot tell exactly save by the sign-board of certain details known to itself alone. Therefore, still on the wing, tacking from side to side, it examines the locality. The home is found at last: the Halictus alights on the threshold of her abode and dives into it quickly.

What happens at the bottom of the pit must be the same thing that happens in the case of the other Wild Bees. The harvester enters a cell backwards; she first brushes herself and drops her load of pollen; then, turning round, she disgorges the honey in her crop upon the floury mass. This done, the unwearied one leaves the burrow and flies away, back to the flowers. After many journeys, the stack of provisions in the cell is sufficient. This is the moment to bake the cake.

The mother kneads her flour, mingles it sparingly with honey. The mixture is made into a round loaf, the size of a pea. Unlike our own loaves, this one has the crust inside and the crumb outside. The middle part of the roll, the ration which will be consumed last, when the grub has acquired some strength, consists of almost nothing but dry pollen. The Bee keeps the dainties in her crop for the outside of the loaf, whence the feeble grub-worm is to take its first mouthfuls. Here it is all soft crumb, a delicious sandwich with plenty of honey. The little breakfast-roll is arranged in rings regulated according to the age of the nurseling: first the syrupy outside and at the very end the dry inside. Thus it is ordained by the economics of the Halictus.

An egg bent like a bow is laid upon the sphere. According to the generally-accepted rule, it now only remains to close the cabin. Honey-gatherers—Anthophorae, Osmiae, Mason-bees and many others—usually first collect a sufficient stock of food and then, having laid the egg, shut up the cell, to which they need pay no more attention. The Halicti employ a different method. The compartments, each with its round loaf and its egg—the tenant and his provisions—are not closed up. As they all open into the common passage of the burrow, the mother is able, without leaving her other occupations, to inspect them daily and enquire tenderly into the progress of her family. I imagine, without possessing any certain proof, that from time to time she distributes additional provisions to the grubs, for the original loaf appears to me a very frugal ration compared with that served by the other Bees.

Certain hunting Hymenoptera, the Bembex-wasps, for instance, are accustomed to furnish the provisions in instalments: so that the grub may have fresh though dead game, they fill the platter each day. The Halictus mother has not these domestic necessities, as her provisions keep more easily; but still she might well distribute a second portion of flour to the larvae, when their appetite attains its height. I can see nothing else to explain the open doors of the cells during the feeding-period.

At last the grubs, close-watched and fed to repletion, have achieved the requisite degree of fatness; they are on the eve of being transformed into pupae. Then and not till then the cells are closed: a big clay stopper is built by the mother into the spreading mouth of the jug. Henceforth the maternal cares are over. The rest will come of itself.

Hitherto we have witnessed only the peaceful details of the housekeeping. Let us go back a little and we shall be witnesses of rampant brigandage. In May, I visit my most populous village daily, at about ten o'clock in the morning, when the victualling-operations are in full swing. Seated on a low chair in the sun, with my back bent and my arms upon my knees, I watch, without moving, until dinner-time. What attracts me is a parasite, a trumpery Gnat, the bold despoiler of the Halictus.

Has the jade a name? I trust so, without, however, caring to waste my time in enquiries that can have no interest for the reader. Facts clearly stated are preferable to the dry minutiae of nomenclature. Let me content myself with giving a brief description of the culprit. She is a Dipteron, or Fly, five millimetres long. (.195 inch.—Translator's Note.) Eyes, dark-red; face, white. Corselet, pearl-grey, with five rows of fine black dots, which are the roots of stiff bristles pointing backwards. Greyish belly, pale below. Black legs.

She abounds in the colony under observation. Crouching in the sun, near a burrow, she waits. As soon as the Halictus arrives from her harvesting, her legs yellow with pollen, the Gnat darts forth and pursues her, keeping behind her in all the turns of her oscillating flight. At last, the Bee suddenly dives indoors. No less suddenly the other settles on the mole-hill, quite close to the entrance. Motionless, with her head turned towards the door of the house, she waits for the Bee to finish her business. The latter reappears at last and, for a few seconds, stands on the threshold, with her head and thorax outside the hole. The Gnat, on her side, does not stir.

Often, they are face to face, separated by a space no wider than a finger's breadth. Neither of them shows the least excitement. The Halictus—judging, at least, by her tranquillity—takes no notice of the parasite lying in wait for her; the parasite, on the other hand, displays no fear of being punished for her audacity. She remains imperturbable, she, the dwarf, in the presence of the colossus who could crush her with one blow.

In vain I watch anxiously for some sign of apprehension on either side: nothing in the Halictus points to a knowledge of the danger run by her family; nor does the Gnat betray any dread of swift retribution. Plunderer and plundered stare at each other for a moment; and that is all.

If she liked, the amiable giantess could rip up with her claw the tiny bandit who ruins her home; she could crunch her with her mandibles, run her through with her stiletto. She does nothing of the sort, but leaves the robber in peace, to sit quite close, motionless, with her red eyes fixed on the threshold of the house. Why this fatuous clemency?

The Bee flies off. Forthwith, the Gnat walks in, with no more ceremony than if she were entering her own place. She now chooses among the victualled cells at her ease, for they are all open, as I have said; she leisurely deposits her eggs. No one will disturb her until the Bee's return. To flour one's legs with pollen, to distend one's crop with syrup is a task that takes long a-doing; and the intruder, therefore, has time and to spare wherein to commit her felony. Moreover, her chronometer is well-regulated and gives the exact measure of the Bee's length of absence. When the Halictus comes back from the fields, the Gnat has decamped. In some favourable spot, not far from the burrow, she awaits the opportunity for a fresh misdeed.

What would happen if a parasite were surprised at her work by the Bee? Nothing serious. I see them, greatly daring, follow the Halictus right into the cave and remain there for some time while the mixture of pollen and honey is being prepared. Unable to make use of the paste so long as the harvester is kneading it, they go back to the open air and wait on the threshold for the Bee to come out. They return to the sunlight, calmly, with unhurried steps: a clear proof that nothing untoward has occurred in the depths where the Halictus works.

A tap on the Gnat's neck, if she become too enterprising in the neighbourhood of the cake: that is all that the lady of the house seems to allow herself, to drive away the intruder. There is no serious affray between the robber and the robbed. This is apparent from the self-possessed manner and undamaged condition of the dwarf who returns from visiting the giantess engaged down in the burrow.

The Bee, when she comes home, whether laden with provisions or not, hesitates, as I have said, for a while; in a series of rapid zigzags, she moves backwards, forwards and from side to side, at a short distance from the ground. This intricate flight at first suggests the idea that she is trying to lead her persecutress astray by means of an inextricable tangle of marches and countermarches. That would certainly be a prudent move on the Bee's part; but so much wisdom appears to be denied her.

It is not the enemy that is disturbing her, but rather the difficulty of finding her own house amid the confusion of the mole-hills, encroaching one upon the other, and all the alleys of the little township, which, owing to landslips of fresh rubbish, alter in appearance from one day to the next. Her hesitation is manifest, for she often blunders and alights at the entrance to a burrow that is not hers. The mistake is at once perceived from the slight indications of the doorway.

The search is resumed with the same see-sawing flights, mingled with sudden excursions to a distance. At last, the burrow is recognized. The Halictus dives into it with a rush; but, however prompt her disappearance underground, the Gnat is there, perched on the threshold with her eyes turned to the entrance, waiting for the Bee to come out, so that she may visit the honey-jars in her turn.

When the owner of the house ascends, the other draws back a little, just enough to leave a free passage and no more. Why should she put herself out? the meeting is so peaceful that, short of further information, one would not suspect that a destroyer and destroyed were face to face. Far from being intimidated by the sudden arrival of the Halictus, the Gnat pays hardly any attention; and, in the same way, the Halictus takes no notice of her persecutress, unless the bandit pursue her and worry her on the wing. Then, with a sudden bend, the Bee makes off.

Even so do Philanthus apivorus (The Bee-hunting Wasp. Cf. "Social Life in the Insect World": chapter 13.—Translator's Note.) and the other game-hunters behave when the Tachina is at their heels seeking the chance to lay her egg on the morsel about to be stored away. Without jostling the parasite which they find hanging around the burrow, they go indoors quite peaceably; but, on the wing, perceiving her after them, they dart off wildly. The Tachina, however, dares not go down to the cells where the huntress stacks her provisions; she prudently waits at the door for the Philanthus to arrive. The crime, the laying of the egg, is committed at the very moment when the victim is about to vanish underground.

The troubles of the parasite of the Halictus are of quite another kind. The homing Bee has her honey in her crop and her pollen on her leg-brushes: the first is inaccessible to the thief; the second is powdery and would give no resting-place to the egg. Besides, there is not enough of it yet: to collect the wherewithal for that round loaf of hers, the Bee will have to make repeated journeys. When the necessary amount is obtained, she will knead it with the tip of her mandibles and shape it with her feet into a little ball. The Gnat's egg, were it present among the materials, would certainly be in danger during this manipulation.

The alien egg, therefore, must be laid on the finished bread; and, as the preparation takes place underground, the parasite is needs obliged to go down to the Halictus. With inconceivable daring, she does go down, even when the Bee is there. Whether through cowardice or silly indulgence, the dispossessed insect lets the other have its way.

The object of the Gnat, with her tenacious lying-in-wait and her reckless burglaries, is not to feed herself at the harvester's expense: she could get her living out of the flowers with much less trouble than her thieving trade involves. The most, I think, that she can allow herself to do in the Halictus' cellars is to take one morsel just to ascertain the quality of the victuals. Her great, her sole business is to settle her family. The stolen goods are not for herself, but for her offspring.

Let us dig up the pollen-loaves. We shall find them most often crumbled with no regard to economy, simply frittered away. We shall see two or three maggots, with pointed mouths, moving in the yellow flour scattered over the floor of the cell. These are the Gnat's progeny. With them we sometimes find the lawful owner, the grub-worm of the Halictus, but stunted and emaciated with fasting. His gluttonous companions, without otherwise molesting him, deprive him of the best of everything. The wretched starveling dwindles, shrivels up and soon disappears from view. His corpse, a mere atom, blended with the remaining provisions, supplies the maggots with one mouthful the more.

And what does the Halictus mother do in this disaster? She is free to visit her grubs at any moment; she has but to put her head into the passage of the house: she cannot fail to be apprised of their distress. The squandered loaf, the swarming mass of vermin tell their own tale. Why does she not take the intruders by the skin of the abdomen? To grind them to powder with her mandibles, to fling them out of doors were the business of a second. And the foolish creature never thinks of it, leaves the ravagers in peace!

She does worse. When the time of the nymphosis comes, the Halictus mother goes to the cells rifled by the parasite and closes them with an earthen plug as carefully as she does the rest. This final barricade, an excellent precaution when the cot is occupied by an Halictus in course of metamorphosis, becomes the height of absurdity when the Gnat has passed that way. Instinct does not hesitate in the face of this ineptitude: it seals up emptiness. I say, emptiness, because the crafty maggot hastens to decamp the instant that the victuals are consumed, as though it foresaw an insuperable obstacle for the coming Fly: it quits the cell before the Bee closes it.

To rascally guile the parasite adds prudence. All, until there is none of them left, abandon the clay homes which would be their undoing once the entrance was plugged up. The earthen niche, so grateful to the tender skin, thanks to its polished coating, so free from humidity, thanks to its waterproof glaze, ought, one would think, to make an excellent waiting-place. The maggots will have none of it. Lest they should find themselves walled in when they become frail Gnats, they go away and disperse in the neighbourhood of the ascending shaft.

My digging operations, in fact, always reveal the pupae outside the cells, never inside. I find them enshrined, one by one, in the body of the clayey earth, in a narrow recess which the emigrant worm has contrived to make for itself. Next spring, when the hour comes for leaving, the adult insect has but to creep through the rubbish, which is easy work.

Another and no less imperative reason compels this change of abode on the parasite's part. In July, a second generation of the Halictus is procreated. The Gnat, reduced on her side to a single brood, remains in the pupa state and awaits the spring of the following year before effecting her transformation. The honey-gather resumes her work in her native village; she avails herself of the pits and cells constructed in the spring, saving no little time thereby. The whole elaborate structure has remained in good condition. It needs but a few repairs to make the old house habitable.

Now what would happen if the Bee, so scrupulous in matters of cleanliness, were to find a pupa in the cell which she is sweeping? She would treat the cumbersome object as she would a piece of old plaster. It would be no more to her than any other refuse, a bit of gravel, which, seized with the mandibles, crushed perhaps, would be sent to join the rubbish-heap outside. Once removed from the soil and exposed to the inclemencies of the weather, the pupa would inevitably perish.

I admire this intelligent foresight of the maggot, which forgoes the comfort of the moment for the security of the future. Two dangers threaten it: to be immured in a casket whence the Fly can never issue; or else to die out of doors, in the unkindly air, when the Bee sweeps out the restored cells. To avoid this twofold peril, it decamps before the door is closed, before the July Halictus sets her house in order.

Let us now see what comes of the parasite's intrusion. In the course of June, when peace is established in the Halictus' home, I dig up my largest village, comprising some fifty burrows in all. None of the sorrows of this underworld shall escape me. There are four of us engaged in sifting the excavated earth through our fingers. What one has examined another takes up and examines; and then another and another yet. The returns are heartrending. We do not succeed in finding one single nymph of the Halictus. The whole of the populous city has perished; and its place has been taken by the Gnat. There is a glut of that individual's pupae. I collect them in order to trace their evolution.

The year runs its course; and the little russet kegs, into which the original maggots have hardened and contracted, remain stationary. They are seeds endowed with latent life. The heats of July do not rouse them from their torpor. In that month, the period of the second generation of the Halictus, there is a sort of truce of God: the parasite rests and the Bee works in peace. If hostilities were to be resumed straight away, as murderous in summer as they were in spring, the progeny of the Halictus, too cruelly smitten, might possibly disappear altogether. This lull readjusts the balance.

In April, when the Zebra Halictus, in search of a good place for her burrows, roams up and down the garden paths with her oscillating flight, the parasite, on its side, hastens to hatch. Oh, the precise and terrible agreement between those two calendars, the calendar of the persecutor and the persecuted! At the very moment when the Bee comes out, here is the Gnat: she is ready to begin her deadly starving-process all over again.

Were this an isolated case, one's mind would not dwell upon it: an Halictus more or less in the world makes little difference in the general balance. But, alas, brigandage in all its forms is the rule in the eternal conflict of living things! From the lowest to the highest, every producer is exploited by the unproductive. Man himself, whose exceptional rank ought to raise him above such baseness, excels in this ravening lust. He says to himself that business means getting hold of other people's cash, even as the Gnat says to herself that business means getting hold of the Halictus' honey. And, to play the brigand to better purpose, he invents war, the art of killing wholesale and of doing with glory that which, when done on a smaller scale, leads to the gallows.

Shall we never behold the realization of that sublime vision which is sung on Sundays in the smallest village-church: Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis! If war affected humanity alone, perhaps the future would have peace in store for us, seeing that generous minds are working for it with might and main; but the scourge also rages among the lower animals, which in their obstinate way, will never listen to reason. Once the evil is laid down as a general condition, it perhaps becomes incurable. Life in the future, it is to be feared, will be what it is to-day, a perpetual massacre.

Whereupon, by a desperate effort of the imagination, one pictures to oneself a giant capable of juggling with the planets. He is irresistible strength; he is also law and justice. He knows of our battles, our butcheries, our farm-burnings, our town-burnings, our brutal triumphs; he knows our explosives, our shells, our torpedo-boats, our ironclads and all our cunning engines of destruction; he knows as well the appalling extent of the appetites among all creatures, down to the very lowest. Well, if that just and mighty one held the earth under his thumb, would he hesitate whether he ought to crush it?

He would not hesitate...He would let things take their course. He would say to himself:

'The old belief is right; the earth is a rotten apple, gnawed by the vermin of evil. It is a first crude attempt, a step towards a kindlier destiny. Let it be: order and justice are waiting at the end.'



CHAPTER 13. THE HALICTI: THE PORTRESS.

Leaving our village is no very serious matter when we are children. We even look on it as a sort of holiday. We are going to see something new, those magic pictures of our dreams. With age come regrets; and the close of life is spent in stirring up old memories. Then the beloved village reappears, in the biograph of the mind, embellished, transfigured by the glow of those first impressions; and the mental image, superior to the reality, stands out in amazingly clear relief. The past, the far-off past, was only yesterday; we see it, we touch it.

For my part, after three-quarters of a century, I could walk with my eyes closed straight to the flat stone where I first heard the soft chiming note of the Midwife Toad; yes, I should find it to a certainty, if time, which devastates all things, even the homes of Toads, has not moved it or perhaps left it in ruins.

I see, on the margin of the brook, the exact position of the alder-trees whose tangled roots, deep under the water, were a refuge for the Crayfish. I should say:

'It is just at the foot of that tree that I had the unutterable bliss of catching a beauty. She had horns so long...and enormous claws, full of meat, for I got her just at the right time.'

I should go without faltering to the ash under whose shade my heart beat so loudly one sunny spring morning. I had caught sight of a sort of white, cottony ball among the branches. Peeping from the depths of the wadding was an anxious little head with a red hood to it. O what unparalleled luck! It was a Goldfinch, sitting on her eggs.

Compared with a find like this, lesser events do not count. Let us leave them. In any case, they pale before the memory of the paternal garden, a tiny hanging garden of some thirty paces by ten, situated right at the top of the village. The only spot that overlooks it is a little esplanade on which stands the old castle (The Chateau de Saint-Leons standing just outside and above the village of Saint-Leons, where the author was born in 1823. Cf. "The Life of the Fly": chapters 6 and 7.—Translator's Note.) with the four turrets that have now become dovecotes. A steep path takes you up to this open space. From my house on, it is more like a precipice than a slope. Gardens buttressed by walls are staged in terraces on the sides of the funnel-shaped valley. Ours is the highest; it is also the smallest.

There are no trees. Even a solitary apple-tree would crowd it. There is a patch of cabbages, with a border of sorrel, a patch of turnips and another of lettuces. That is all we have in the way of garden-stuff; there is no room for more. Against the upper supporting-wall, facing due south, is a vine-arbour which, at intervals, when the sun is generous, provides half a basketful of white muscatel grapes. These are a luxury of our own, greatly envied by the neighbours, for the vine is unknown outside this corner, the warmest in the village.

A hedge of currant-bushes, the only safeguard against a terrible fall, forms a parapet above the next terrace. When our parents' watchful eyes are off us, we lie flat on our stomachs, my brother and I, and look into the abyss at the foot of the wall bulging under the thrust of the land. It is the garden of monsieur le notaire.

There are beds with box-borders in that garden; there are pear-trees reputed to give pears, real pears, more or less good to eat when they have ripened on the straw all through the late autumn. In our imagination, it is a spot of perpetual delight, a paradise, but a paradise seen the wrong way up: instead of contemplating it from below, we gaze at it from above. How happy they must be with so much space and all those pears!

We look at the hives, around which the hovering Bees make a sort of russet smoke. They stand under the shelter of a great hazel. The tree has sprung up all of itself in a fissure of the wall, almost on the level of our currant-bushes. While it spreads its mighty branches over the notary's hives, its roots, at least, are on our land. It belongs to us. The trouble is to gather the nuts.

I creep along astride the strong branches projecting horizontally into space. If I slip or if the support breaks, I shall come to grief in the midst of the angry Bees. I do not slip and the support does not break. With the bent switch which my brother hands me, I bring the finest clusters within my reach. I soon fill my pockets. Moving backwards, still straddling my branch, I recover terra firma. O wondrous days of litheness and assurance, when, for a few filberts, on a perilous perch we braved the abyss!

Enough. These reminiscences, so dear to my dreams, do not interest the reader. Why stir up more of them? I am content to have brought this fact into prominence: the first glimmers of light penetrating into the dark chambers of the mind leave an indelible impression, which the years make fresher instead of dimmer.

Obscured by everyday worries, the present is much less familiar to us, in its petty details, than the past, with childhood's glow upon it. I see plainly in my memory what my prentice eyes saw; and I should never succeed in reproducing with the same accuracy what I saw last week. I know my village thoroughly, though I quitted it so long ago; and I know hardly anything of the towns to which the vicissitudes of life have brought me. An exquisitely sweet link binds us to our native soil; we are like the plant that has to be torn away from the spot where it put out its first roots. Poor though it be, I should love to see my own village again; I should like to leave my bones there.

Does the insect in its turn receive a lasting impression of its earliest visions? Has it pleasant memories of its first surroundings? We will not speak of the majority, a world of wandering gipsies who establish themselves anywhere provided that certain conditions be fulfilled; but the others, the settlers, living in groups: do they recall their native village? Have they, like ourselves, a special affection for the place which saw their birth?

Yes, indeed they have: they remember, they recognize the maternal abode, they come back to it, they restore it, they colonize it anew. Among many other instances, let us quote that of the Zebra Halictus. She will show us a splendid example of love for one's birthplace translating itself into deeds.

The Halictus' spring family acquire the adult form in a couple of months or so; they leave the cells about the end of June. What goes on inside these neophytes as they cross the threshold of the burrow for the first time? Something, apparently, that may be compared with our own impressions of childhood. An exact and indelible image is stamped on their virgin memories. Despite the years, I still see the stone whence came the resonant notes of the little Toads, the parapet of currant-bushes, the notary's garden of Eden. These trifles make the best part of my life. The Halictus sees in the same way the blade of grass whereon she rested in her first flight, the bit of gravel which her claw touched in her first climb to the top of the shaft. She knows her native abode by heart just as I know my village. The locality has become familiar to her in one glad, sunny morning.

She flies off, seeks refreshment on the flowers near at hand and visits the fields where the coming harvests will be gathered. The distance does not lead her astray, so faithful are her impressions of her first trip; she finds the encampment of her tribe; among the burrows of the village, so numerous and so closely resembling one another, she knows her own. It is the house where she was born, the beloved house with its unforgettable memories.

But, on returning home, the Halictus is not the only mistress of the house. The dwelling dug by the solitary Bee in early spring remains, when summer comes, the joint inheritance of the members of the family. There are ten cells, or thereabouts, underground. Now from these cells there have issued none but females. This is the rule among the three species of Halicti that concern us now and probably also among many others, if not all. They have two generations in each year. The spring one consists of females only; the summer one comprises both males and females, in almost equal numbers. We shall return to this curious subject in our next chapter.

The household, therefore, if not reduced by accidents, above all if not starved by the usurping Gnat, would consist of half-a-score of sisters, none but sisters, all equally industrious and all capable of procreating without a nuptial partner. On the other hand, the maternal dwelling is no hovel; far from it: the entrance-gallery, the principal room of the house, will serve quite well, after a few odds and ends of refuse have been swept away. This will be so much gained in time, ever precious to the Bee. The cells at the bottom, the clay cabins, are also nearly intact. To make use of them, it will be enough for the Halictus to polish up the stucco with her tongue.

Well, which of the survivors, all equally entitled to the succession, will inherit the house? There are six of them, seven, or more, according to the chances of mortality. To whose share will the maternal dwelling fall?

There is no quarrel between the interested parties. The mansion is recognized as common property without dispute. The sisters come and go peacefully through the same door, attend to their business, pass and let the others pass. Down at the bottom of the pit, each has her little demesne, her group of cells dug at the cost of fresh toil, when the old ones, now insufficient in number, are occupied. In these recesses, which are private estates, each mother works by herself, jealous of her property and of her privacy. Every elsewhere, traffic is free to all.

The exits and entrances in the working fortress provide a spectacle of the highest interest. A harvester arrives from the fields, the feather-brushes of her legs powdered with pollen. If the door be open, the Bee at once dives underground. To tarry on the threshold would mean waste of time; and the business is urgent. Sometimes, several appear upon the scene at almost the same moment. The passage is too narrow for two, especially when they have to avoid any untimely contact that would make the floury burden fall to the floor. The nearest to the opening enters quickly. The others, drawn up on the threshold in order of their arrival, respectful of one another's rights, await their turn. As soon as the first disappears, the second follows after her and is herself swiftly followed by the third and then the others, one by one.

Sometimes, again, there is a meeting between a Bee about to come out and a Bee about to go in. Then the latter draws back a little and makes way for the former. The politeness is reciprocal. I see some who, when on the point of emerging from the pit, go down again and leave the passage free for the one who has just arrived. Thanks to this mutual spirit of accommodation, the business of the house proceeds without impediment.

Let us keep our eyes open. There is something better than the well-preserved order of the entrances. When an Halictus appears, returning from her round of the flowers, we see a sort of trap-door, which closed the house, suddenly fall and give a free passage. As soon as the new arrival has entered, the trap rises back into its place, almost level with the ground, and closes the entrance anew. The same thing happens when the insects go out. At a request from within, the trap descends, the door opens and the Bee flies away. The outlet is closed forthwith.

What can this valve be which, descending or ascending in the cylinder of the pit, after the fashion of a piston, opens and closes the house at each departure and at each arrival? It is an Halictus, who has become the portress of the establishment. With her large head, she makes an impassable barrier at the top of the entrance-hall. If any one belonging to the house wants to go in or out, she 'pulls the cord,' that is to say, she withdraws to a spot where the gallery becomes wider and leaves room for two. The other passes. She then at once returns to the orifice and blocks it with the top of her head. Motionless, ever on the look-out, she does not leave her post save to drive away importunate visitors.

Let us profit by her brief appearances outside to take a look at her. We recognize in her an Halictus similar to the others, which are now busy harvesting; but the top of her head is bald and her dress is dingy and thread-bare. All the nap is gone; and one can hardly make out the handsome stripes of red and brown which she used to have. These tattered, work-worn garments make things clear to us.

This Bee who mounts guard and performs the office of a portress at the entrance to the burrow is older than the others. She is the foundress of the establishment, the mother of the actual workers, the grandmother of the present grubs. In the springtime of her life, three months ago, she wore herself out in solitary labours. Now that her ovaries are dried up, she takes a well-earned rest. No, rest is hardly the word. She still works, she assists the household to the best of her power. Incapable of being a mother for a second time, she becomes a portress, opens the door to the members of her family and makes strangers keep their distance.

The suspicious Kid (In La Fontaine's fable, "Le Loup, la Chevre et le Chevreau."—Translator's Note.), looking through the chink, said to the Wolf:

'Show me a white foot, or I shan't open the door.'

No less suspicious, the grandmother says to each comer:

'Show me the yellow foot of an Halictus, or you won't be let in.'

None is admitted to the dwelling unless she be recognized as a member of the family.

See for yourselves. Near the burrow passes an Ant, an unscrupulous adventuress, who would not be sorry to know the meaning of the honeyed fragrance that rises from the bottom of the cellar.

"Be off, or you'll catch it!' says the portress, wagging her neck.

As a rule the threat suffices. The Ant decamps. Should she insist, the watcher leaves her sentry-box, flings herself upon the saucy jade, buffets her and drives her away. The moment the punishment has been administered, she returns to her post.

Next comes the turn of a Leaf-cutter (Megachile albocincta, PEREZ), which, unskilled in the art of burrowing, utilizes, after the manner of her kin, the old galleries dug by others. Those of the Zebra Halictus suit her very well, when the terrible Gnat has left them vacant for lack of heirs. Seeking for a home wherein to stack her robinia-leaf honey-pots, she often makes a flying inspection of my colonies of Halicti. A burrow seems to take her fancy; but, before she sets foot on earth, her buzzing is noticed by the sentry, who suddenly darts out and makes a few gestures on the threshold of her door. That is all. The Leaf-cutter has understood. She moves on.

Sometimes, the Megachile has time to alight and insert her head into the mouth of the pit. In a moment, the portress is there, comes a little higher and bars the way. Follows a not very serious contest. The stranger quickly recognizes the rights of the first occupant and, without insisting, goes to seek an abode elsewhere.

An accomplished marauder (Caelioxys caudata, SPIN.), a parasite of the Megachile, receives a sound drubbing under my eyes. She thought, the feather-brain, that she was entering the Leaf-Cutter's establishment! She soon finds out her mistake; she meets the door-keeping Halictus, who administers a sharp correction. She makes off at full speed. And so with the others which, through inadvertence or ambition, seek to enter the burrow.

The same intolerance exists among the different grandmothers. About the middle of July, when the animation of the colony is at its height, two sets of Halicti are easily distinguishable: the young mothers and the old. The former, much more numerous, brisk of movement and smartly arrayed, come and go unceasingly from the burrows to the fields and from the fields to the burrows. The latter, faded and dispirited, wander idly from hole to hole. They look as though they had lost their way and were incapable of finding their homes. Who are these vagabonds? I see in them afflicted ones bereft of a family through the act of the odious Gnat. Many burrows have been altogether exterminated. At the awakening of summer, the mother found herself alone. She left her empty house and went off in search of a dwelling where there were cradles to defend, a guard to mount. But those fortunate nests already have their overseer, the foundress, who, jealous of her rights, gives her unemployed neighbour a cold reception. One sentry is enough; two would merely block the narrow guard-room.

I am privileged at times to witness a fight between two grandmothers. When the tramp in quest of employment appears outside the door, the lawful occupant does not move from her post, does not withdraw into the passage, as she would before an Halictus returning from the fields. Far from making way, she threatens the intruder with her feet and mandibles. The other retaliates and tries to force her way in notwithstanding. Blows are exchanged. The fray ends by the defeat of the stranger, who goes off to pick a quarrel elsewhere.

These little scenes afford us a glimpse of certain details of the highest interest in the habits of the Zebra Halictus. The mother who builds her nest in the spring no longer leaves her home, once her works are finished. Shut up at the bottom of the burrow, busied with the thousand cares of housekeeping, or else drowsing, she waits for her daughters to come out. When, in the summer heats, the life of the village recommences, having nought to do outside as a harvester, she stands sentry at the entrance to the hall, so as to let none in save the workers of the home, her own daughters. She wards off evilly-disposed visitors. None can enter without the door-keeper's consent.

There is nothing to tell us that the watcher ever deserts her post. Not once do I see her leave her house to go and seek some refreshment from the flowers. Her age and her sedentary occupation, which involves no great fatigue, perhaps relieve her of the need of nourishment. Perhaps, also, the young ones returning from their plundering may from time to time disgorge a drop of the contents of their crops for her benefit. Fed or unfed, the old one no longer goes out.

But what she does need is the joys of an active family. Many are deprived of these. The Gnat's burglary has destroyed the busy household. The sorely-tried Bees abandon the deserted burrow. It is they who, ragged and careworn, wander through the village. When they move, their flight is only a short one; more often they remain motionless. It is they who, soured in their tempers, attack their fellows and seek to dislodge them. They grow rarer and more languid from day to day; then they disappear for good. What has become of them? The little Grey Lizard had his eye on them: they are easily snapped up.