"Well, as for me, there is something I am more proud of than of all my sonnets, and which has done much more for my reputation than my verses."

I opened my eyes wide, "What is that?" I asked. The master looked at me mischievously; then, with that beautiful light in his eyes which fires his youthful countenance, he said triumphantly—

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

I was so amazed that I forgot to laugh.

"I am perfectly serious in telling you this."

"I know, my dear master, of your reputation for profound scholarship: but to imagine, on that account, that you were famed for your discovery of the etymology of haricot—I should never have expected it! Will you tell me how you made the discovery?"

"Willingly. See now: I found some information respecting the haricot while studying that fine seventeenth-century work of natural history by Hernandez: De Historia plantarum novi orbis. The word haricot was unknown in France until the seventeenth century: people used the word feve or phaseol: in Mexican, ayacot. Thirty species of haricot were cultivated in Mexico before the conquest. They are still known as ayacot, especially the red haricot, spotted with black or violet. One day at the house of Gaston Paris I met a famous scholar. Hearing my name, he rushed at me and asked if it was I who had discovered the etymology of the word haricot. He was absolutely ignorant of the fact that I had written verses and published the Trophees."—

A very pretty whim, to count the jewellery of his famous sonnets as second in importance to the nomenclature of a vegetable! I in my turn was delighted with his ayacot. How right I was to suspect the outlandish word of American Indian origin! How right the insect was, in testifying, in its own fashion, that the precious bean came to us from the New World! While still retaining its original name—or something sufficiently like it—the bean of Montezuma, the Aztec ayacot, has migrated from Mexico to the kitchen-gardens of Europe.

But it has reached us without the company of its licensed consumer; for there must assuredly be a weevil in its native country which levies tribute on its nourishing tissues. Our native bean-eaters have mistaken the stranger; they have not had time as yet to grow familiar with it, or to appreciate its merits; they have prudently abstained from touching the ayacot, whose novelty awoke suspicion. Until our own days the Mexican bean remained untouched: unlike our other leguminous seeds, which are all eagerly exploited by the weevil.

This state of affairs could not last. If our own fields do not contain the insect amateur of the haricot the New World knows it well enough. By the road of commercial exchange, sooner or later some worm-eaten sack of haricots must bring it to Europe. The invasion is inevitable.

According to documents now before me, indeed, it has already taken place. Three or four years ago I received from Maillane, in the Bouches-du-Rhone, what I sought in vain in my own neighbourhood, although I questioned many a farmer and housewife, and astonished them by my questions. No one had ever seen the pest of the haricot; no one had ever heard of it. Friends who knew of my inquiries sent me from Maillane, as I have said, information that gave great satisfaction to my naturalist's curiosity. It was accompanied by a measure of haricots which were utterly and outrageously spoiled; every bean was riddled with holes, changed into a kind of sponge. Within them swarmed innumerable weevils, which recalled, by their diminutive size, the lentil-weevil, Bruchus lenti.

The senders told me of the loss experienced at Maillane. The odious little creature, they said, had destroyed the greater portion of the harvest. A veritable plague, such as had never before been known, had fallen upon the haricots, leaving the housewife barely a handful to put in the saucepan. Of the habits of the creature and its way of going to work nothing was known. It was for me to discover them by means of experiment.

Quick, then, let us experiment! The circumstances favour me. We are in the middle of June, and in my garden there is a bed of early haricots; the black Belgian haricots, sown for use in the kitchen. Since I must sacrifice the toothsome vegetable, let us loose the terrible destroyer on the mass of verdure. The development of the plant is at the requisite stage, if I may go by what the Bruchus pisi has already taught me; the flowers are abundant, and the pods are equally so; still green, and of all sizes.

I place on a plate two or three handfuls of the infested haricots, and set the populous heap in the full sunlight by the edge of my bed of beans. I can imagine what will happen. Those insects which are already free, and those which the stimulus of the sunshine will presently liberate, will emerge and take to their wings. Finding the maternal haricot close at hand they will take possession of the vines. I shall see them exploring pods and flowers, and before very long they will lay their eggs. That is how the pea-weevil would behave under similar conditions.

But no: to my surprise and confusion, matters do not fall out as I foresaw. For a few minutes the insects bustle about in the sunlight, opening and closing their wing-covers to ease the mechanism of flight; then one by one they fly away, mounting in the luminous air; they grow smaller and smaller to the sight, and are quickly lost to view. My persevering attentions have not met with the slightest success; not one of the weevils has settled on my haricots.

When the joys of liberty have been tasted will they return—to-night, to-morrow, or later? No, they do not return. All that week, at favourable hours, I inspect the rows of beans pod by pod, flower by flower; but never a Bruchus do I see, nor even an egg. Yet the season is propitious, for at this very moment the mothers imprisoned in my jars lay a profusion of eggs upon the dry haricots.

Next season I try again. I have at my disposal two other beds, which I have sown with the late haricot, the red haricot; partly for the use of the household, but principally for the benefit of the weevil. Arranged in convenient rows, the two crops will be ready, one in August and one in September or later.

With the red haricot I repeat the experiment already essayed with the black haricot. On several occasions, in suitable weather, I release large numbers of weevils from my glass jars, the general headquarters of the tribe. On each occasion the result is plainly negative. All through the season, until both crops are exhausted, I repeat my search almost daily; but I can never discover a single pod infested, nor even a single weevil perching on leaf or flower.

Certainly the inspection has not been at fault. The household is warned to respect certain rows of beans which I have reserved for myself. It is also requested to keep a look-out for eggs on all the pods gathered. I myself examine with a magnifying-glass all the haricots coming from my own or from neighbouring gardens before handing them over to the housewife to be shelled. All my trouble is wasted: there is not an egg to be seen.

To these experiments in the open air I add others performed under glass. I place, in some tall, narrow bottles, fresh haricot pods hanging from their stems; some green, others mottled with crimson, and containing seeds not far from mature. Each bottle is finally given a population of weevils. This time I obtain some eggs, but I am no further advanced; they are laid on the sides of the bottles, but not on the pods. Nevertheless, they hatch. For a few days I see the grubs wandering about, exploring the pods and the glass with equal zeal. Finally one and all perish without touching the food provided.

The conclusion to be drawn from these facts is obvious: the young and tender haricot is not the proper diet. Unlike the Bruchus pisi, the female of the haricot-weevil refuses to trust her family to beans that are not hardened by age and desiccation; she refused to settle on my bean-patch because the food she required was not to be found there. What does she require? Evidently the mature, dry, hard haricot, which falls to earth with the sound of a small pebble. I hasten to satisfy her. I place in the bottles some very mature, horny pods, thoroughly desiccated by exposure to the sun. This time the family prospers, the grubs perforate the dry shell, reach the beans, penetrate them, and henceforth all goes well.

To judge by appearances, then, the weevil invades the granary. The beans are left standing in the fields until both plants and pods, shrivelled by the sun, are completely desiccated. The process of beating the pods to loosen and separate the beans is thus greatly facilitated. It is then that the weevil, finding matters to suit her, commences to lay her eggs. By storing his crop a little late the peasant stores the pest as well.

But the weevil more especially attacks the haricot when warehoused. Like the Calander-beetle, which nibbles the wheat in our granaries but despises the cereal while still on the stalk, it abhors the bean while tender, and prefers to establish itself in the peace and darkness of the storehouse. It is a formidable enemy to the merchant rather than to the peasant.

What a fury of destruction once the ravager is installed in the vegetable treasure-house! My bottles give abundant evidence of this. One single haricot bean shelters a numerous family; often as many as twenty members. And not one generation only exploits the bean, but three or four in the year. So long as the skin of the bean contains any edible matter, so long do new consumers establish themselves within it, so that the haricot finally becomes a mere shell stuffed with excreta. The skin, despised by the grubs, is a mere sac, pierced with holes as many as the inhabitants that have deserted it; the ruin is complete.

The Bruchus pisi, a solitary hermit, consumes only so much of the pea as will leave a cell for the nymph; the rest remains intact, so that the pea may be sown, or it will even serve as food, if we can overcome our repugnance. The American insect knows nothing of these limitations; it empties the haricot completely and leaves a skinful of filth that I have seen the pigs refuse. America is anything but considerate when she sends us her entomological pests. We owe the Phylloxera to America; the Phylloxera, that calamitous insect against which our vine-growers wage incessant war: and to-day she is sending us the haricot-weevil, which threatens to be a plague of the future. A few experiments gave me some idea of the peril of such an invasion.

For nearly three years there have stood, on my laboratory table, some dozens of jars and bottles covered with pieces of gauze which prevent escape while permitting of a constant ventilation. These are the cages of my menagerie. In them I rear the haricot-weevil, varying the system of education at will. Amongst other things I have learned that this insect, far from being exclusive in its choice, will accommodate itself to most of our leguminous foods.

All the haricots suit it, black and white, red and variegated, large and small; those of the latest crop and those which have been many years in stock and are almost completely refractory to boiling water. The loose beans are attacked by preference, as being easier to invade, but when the loose beans are not available those in the natural shelter of their pods are attacked with equal zest. However dry and parchment-like the pods, the grubs have no difficulty in attaining the seeds. When attacked in the field or garden, the bean is attacked in this way through the pod. The bean known in Provence as the blind haricot—lou faiou borgne—a bean with a long pod, which is marked with a black spot at the navel, which has the look of a closed and blackened eye, is also greatly appreciated; indeed, I fancy my little guests show an obvious preference for this particular bean.

So far, nothing abnormal; the Bruchus does not wander beyond the limits of the botanical family Phaseolus. But here is a characteristic that increases the peril, and shows us this lover of beans in an unexpected light. Without the slightest hesitation it accepts the dry pea, the bean, the vetch, the tare, and the chick-pea; it goes from one to the other, always satisfied; its offspring live and prosper in all these seeds as well as in the haricot. Only the lentil is refused, perhaps on account of its insufficient volume. The American weevil is a formidable experimentalist.

The peril would be much greater did the insect pass from leguminous seeds to cereals, as at first I feared it might. But it does not do so; imprisoned in my bottles together with a handful of wheat, barley, rice, or maize, the Bruchus invariably perished and left no offspring. The result was the same with oleaginous seeds: such as castor-oil and sunflower. Nothing outside the bean family is of any use to the Bruchus. Thus limited, its portion is none the less considerable, and it uses and abuses it with the utmost energy. The eggs are white, slender, and cylindrical. There is no method in their distribution, no choice in their deposition. The mother lays them singly or in little groups, on the walls of the jar as well as on the haricots. In her negligence she will even lay them on maize, coffee, castor-oil seeds, and other seeds, on which the newly born grubs will promptly perish, not finding them to their taste. What place has maternal foresight here? Abandoned no matter where in the heap of seeds, the eggs are always in place, as it is left to the grub to search and to find the points of invasion.

In five days at most the egg is hatched. A little white creature with a red-brown head emerges. It is a mere speck of a creature, just visible to the naked eye. Its body is thickened forward, to give more strength to its implements—its mandibles—which have to perforate the hard substance of the dry bean, which is as tough as wood. The larvae of the Buprestis and the Capricornis, which burrow in the trunks of trees, are similarly shaped. Directly it issues from the egg the wriggling creature makes off at random with an activity we should hardly expect in one so young. It wanders hither and thither, eager to find food and shelter as soon as possible.

Within twenty-four hours it has usually attained both. I see the tiny grub perforate the horny skin that covers the cotyledons; I watch its efforts; I surprise it sunk half-way in the commencement of a burrow, at the mouth of which is a white floury powder, the waste from the mandibles. It works its way inward and buries itself in the heart of the seed. It will emerge in the adult form in the course of about five weeks, so rapid is its evolution.

This hasty development allows of several generations in the year. I have recorded four. On the other hand, one isolated couple has furnished me with a family of eighty. Consider only the half of this number—supposing the sexes to be equal in number—and at the end of a year the couples issued from this original pair would be represented by the fortieth power of forty; in larvae they would represent the frightful total of more than five millions. What a mountain of haricots would be ravaged by such a legion!

The industry of the larvae reminds us at every point what we have learned from the Bruchus pisi. Each grub excavates a lodging in the mass of the bean, respecting the epidermis, and preparing a circular trap-door which the adult can easily open with a push at the moment of emergence. At the termination of the larval phase the lodgements are betrayed on the surface of the bean by so many shadowy circles. Finally the lid falls, the insect leaves its cell, and the haricot remains pierced by as many holes as it has nourished grubs.

Extremely frugal, satisfied with a little farinaceous powder, the adults seem by no means anxious to abandon the native heap or bin so long as there are beans untouched. They mate in the interstices of the heap; the mothers sow their eggs at random; the young larvae establish themselves some in beans that are so far intact, some in beans which are perforated but not yet exhausted; and all through the summer the operations of breeding are repeated once in every five weeks. The last generation of the year—that of September or October—sleeps in its cells until the warm weather returns.

If the haricot pest were ever to threaten us seriously it would not be very difficult to wage a war of extermination against it. Its habits teach us what tactics we ought to follow. It exploits the dried and gathered crop in the granary or the storehouse. If it is difficult to attack it in the open it would also be useless. The greater part of its affairs are managed elsewhere, in our storehouses. The enemy establishes itself under our roof and is ready to our hand. By means of insecticides defence should be relatively easy.



CHAPTER XX

THE GREY LOCUST

I have just witnessed a moving spectacle: the last moult of a locust; the emergence of the adult from its larval envelope. It was magnificent. I am speaking of the Grey Locust, the colossus among our acridians,[10] which is often seen among the vines in September when the grapes are gathered. By its size—and it grows as long as a man's finger—it lends itself to observation better than any other of its tribe.

The larva, disgustingly fat, like a rude sketch of the perfect insect, is commonly of a tender green; but it is sometimes of a bluish green, a dirty yellow, or a ruddy brown, or even an ashen grey, like the grey of the adult cricket. The corselet is strongly keeled and indented, and is sprinkled with fine white spots. As powerful as in the adult insect, the hind-leg has a corpulent haunch, streaked with red, and a long shin like a two-edged saw.

The elytra, which in a few days will extend far beyond the tip of the abdomen, are at present too small triangular wing-like appendages, touching along their upper edges, and continuing and emphasising the keel or ridge of the corselet. Their free ends stick up like the gable of a house. They remind one of the skirts of a coat, the maker of which has been ludicrously stingy with the cloth, as they merely cover the creature's nakedness at the small of the back. Underneath there are two narrow appendages, the germs of the wings, which are even smaller than the elytra. The sumptuous, elegant sails of to-morrow are now mere rags, so miserly in their dimensions as to be absolutely grotesque. What will emerge from these miserable coverings? A miracle of grace and amplitude.

Let us observe the whole process in detail. Feeling itself ripe for transformation, the insect climbs up the wire-gauze cover by means of its hinder and intermediate limbs. The fore-limbs are folded and crossed on the breast, and are not employed in supporting the insect, which hangs in a reversed position, the back downwards. The triangular winglets, the sheaths of the elytra, open along their line of juncture and separate laterally; the two narrow blades, which contain the wings, rise in the centre of the interval and slightly diverge. The proper position for the process of moulting has now been assumed and the proper stability assured.

The first thing to do is to burst the old skin. Behind the corselet, under the pointed roof of the prothorax, a series of pulsations is produced by alternate inflation and deflation. A similar state of affairs is visible in front of the neck, and probably under the entire surface of the yielding carapace. The fineness of the membrane at the articulations enables us to perceive it at these unarmoured points, but the cuirass of the corselet conceals it in the central portion.

At these points the circulatory reserves of the insect are pulsing in tidal onsets. Their gradual increase is betrayed by pulsations like those of a hydraulic ram. Distended by this rush of humours, by this injection in which the organism concentrates all its forces, the outer skin finally splits along the line of least resistance which the subtle previsions of life have prepared. The fissure extends the whole length of the corselet, opening precisely along the ridge of the keel, as though the two symmetrical halves had been soldered together. Unbreakable elsewhere, the envelope has yielded at this median point, which had remained weaker than the rest of the sheath. The fissure runs back a little way until it reaches a point between the attachments of the wings; on the head it runs forward as far as the base of the antennae, when it sends a short ramification right and left.

Through this breach the back is seen; quite soft, and very pale, with scarcely a tinge of grey. Slowly it curves upwards and becomes more and more strongly hunched; at last it is free.

The head follows, withdrawing itself from its mask, which remains in place, intact in the smallest detail, but looking very strange with its great unseeing glassy eyes. The sheaths of the antennae, without a wrinkle, without the least derangement, and in their natural place, hang over this dead, translucid face.

In emerging from their narrow sheaths, which clasped them so tightly and precisely, the thread-like antennae have evidently met with no resistance, or the sheaths would have been turned inside out, or crumpled out of shape, or wrinkled at least. Without harming the jointed or knotted covers, the contents, of equal volume and equally knotty, have slipped out as easily as though they were smooth, slippery objects sliding out of a loose sheath. The method of extraction is still more astonishing in the case of the hind-legs.

It is now, however, the turn of the front and intermediate pairs of legs. They pull out of their gauntlets and leggings without the least hitch; nothing is torn, nothing buckled; the outer skin is not even crumpled, and all the tissues remain in their natural position. The insect is now hanging from the dome of the cover solely by the claws of the long hind-legs. It hangs in an almost vertical position, the head downwards, swinging like a pendulum if I touch the cover. Four tiny, steely claws are its only support. If they gave or unclasped themselves the insect would be lost, as it is as yet unable to unfurl its enormous wings; but even had the wings emerged they could not grip the air in time to save the creature from the consequences of a fall. But the four claws hold fast; life, before withdrawing from them, left them rigidly contracted, so that they should support without yielding the struggles and withdrawals to follow.

Now the wing-covers and wings emerge. These are four narrow strips, vaguely seamed and furrowed, like strings of rolled tissue-paper. They are barely a quarter of their final length.

They are so soft that they bend under their own weight, and hang down the creature's sides in the reverse of their normal position. The free extremities, which normally point backwards, are now pointing towards the cricket's head as it hangs reversed. The organs of future flight are like four leaves of withered foliage shattered by a terrific rainstorm.

A profound transformation is necessary to bring the wings to their final perfection. The inner changes are already at work; liquids are solidifying; albuminous secretions are bringing order out of chaos; but so far no outward sign betrays what is happening in the mysterious laboratory of the organism. All seems inert and lifeless.

In the meantime the posterior limbs disengage themselves. The great haunches become visible, streaked on the inner faces with a pale rose, which rapidly turns to a vivid crimson. Emergence is easy, the thick and muscular upper portion of the haunch preparing the way for the narrower part of the limb.

It is otherwise with the shank. This, in the adult insect, is armed along its whole length by a double series of stiff, steely spines. Moreover, the lower extremity is terminated by four strong spurs. The shank forms a veritable saw, but with two parallel sets of teeth; and it is so strongly made that it may well be compared, the question of size apart, to the great saw of a quarry-man.

The shank of the larva has the same structure, so that the object to be extracted is enclosed in a scabbard as awkwardly shaped as itself. Each spur is enclosed in a similar spur; each tooth engages in the hollow of a similar tooth, and the sheath is so closely moulded upon the shank that a no more intimate contact could be obtained by replacing the envelope by a layer of varnish applied with a brush.

Nevertheless the tibia, long and narrow as it is, issues from its sheath without catching or sticking anywhere. If I had not repeatedly seen the operation I could not believe it possible; for the discarded sheath is absolutely intact from end to end. Neither the terminal spurs nor the double rows of spines do the slightest damage to the delicate mould. The long-toothed saw leaves the delicate sheath unbroken, although a puff of the breath is enough to tear it; the ferocious spurs slip out of it without leaving so much as a scratch.

I was far from expecting such a result. Having the spiny weapons of the legs in mind, I imagined that those limbs would moult in scales and patches, or that the sheathing would rub off like a dead scarf-skin. How completely the reality surpassed my anticipations!

From the spurs and spines of the sheath, which is as thin as the finest gold-beaters' skin, the spurs and spines of the leg, which make it a most formidable weapon, capable of cutting a piece of soft wood, emerge without the slightest display of violence, without a hitch of any kind; and the empty skin remains in place. Still clinging by its claws to the top of the wire cover, it is untorn, unwrinkled, uncreased. Even the magnifying-glass fails to show a trace of rough usage. Such as the skin was before the cricket left it, so it is now. The legging of dead skin remains in its smallest details the exact replica of the living limb.

If any one asked you to extract a saw from a scabbard exactly moulded upon the steel, and to conduct the operation without the slightest degree of tearing or scratching, you would laugh at the flagrant impossibility of the task. But life makes light of such absurdities; it has its methods of performing the impossible when such methods are required. The leg of the locust affords us such an instance.

Hard as it is when once free of its sheath, the serrated tibia would absolutely refuse to leave the latter, so closely does it fit, unless it were torn to pieces. Yet the difficulty must be evaded, for it is indispensable that the sheaths of the legs should remain intact, in order to afford a firm support until the insect is completely extricated.

The leg in process of liberation is not the leg with which the locust makes its leaps; it has not as yet the rigidity which it will soon acquire. It is soft, and eminently flexible. In those portions which the progress of the moult exposes to view I see the legs bend under the mere weight of the suspended insect when I tilt the supporting cover. They are as flexible as two strips of elastic indiarubber. Yet even now consolidation is progressing, for in a few minutes the proper rigidity will be acquired.

Further along the limbs, in the portions which the sheathing still conceals, the legs are certainly softer still, and in the state of exquisite plasticity—I had almost said fluidity—which allows them to pass through narrow passages almost as a liquid flows.

The teeth of the saws are already there, but have nothing of their imminent rigidity. With the point of a pen-knife I can partially uncover a leg and extract the spines from their serrated mould. They are germs of spines; flexible buds which bend under the slightest pressure and resume their position the moment the pressure is removed.

These needles point backwards as the leg is drawn out of the sheath; but they re-erect themselves and solidify as they emerge. I am witnessing not the mere removal of leggings from limbs already clad in finished armour, but a kind of creation which amazes one by its promptitude.

Very much in the same way, but with far less delicate precision, the claws of the crayfish, at the period of the moult, withdraw the soft flesh of their double fingers from their stony sheath.

Finally the long stilt-like legs are free. They are folded gently against the furrowed thighs, thus to mature undisturbed. The abdomen begins to emerge. Its fine tunic-like covering splits, and wrinkles, but still encloses the extremity of the abdomen, which adheres to the moulted skin for some little time longer. With the exception of this one point the entire insect is now uncovered.

It hangs head downwards, like a pendulum, supported by the talons of the now empty leg-cases. During the whole of the lengthy and meticulous process the four talons have never yielded. The whole operation has been conducted with the utmost delicacy and prudence.

The insect hangs motionless, held by the tip of the abdomen. The abdomen is disproportionately distended; swollen, apparently, by the reserve of organisable humours which the expansion of the wings and wing-covers will presently employ. Meanwhile the creature rests and recovers from its exertions. Twenty minutes of waiting elapse.

Then, exerting the muscles of the back, the suspended insect raises itself and fixes the talons of the anterior limbs in the empty skin above it. Never did acrobat, hanging by the toes to the bar of a trapeze, raise himself with so stupendous a display of strength in the loins. This gymnastic feat accomplished, the rest is easy.

With the purchase thus obtained the insect rises a little and reaches the wire gauze, the equivalent of the twig which would be chosen for the site of the transformation in the open fields. It holds to this with the four anterior limbs. Then the tip of the abdomen is finally liberated, and suddenly, shaken by the final struggle, the empty skin falls to the ground.

This fall is interesting, and reminds me of the persistence with which the empty husk of the Cigale braves the winds of winter, without falling from its supporting twig. The transfiguration of the locust takes place very much as does that of the Cigale. How is it then that the acridian trusts to a hold so easily broken?

The talons of the skin hold firmly so long as the labour of escape continues, although one would expect it to shake the firmest grip; yet they yield at the slightest shock when the labour is terminated. There is evidently a condition of highly unstable equilibrium; showing once more with what delicate precision the insect escapes from its sheath.

For want of a better term I said "escape." But the word is ill chosen; for it implies a certain amount of violence, and no violence must be employed, on account of the instability of equilibrium already mentioned. If the insect, shaken by a sudden effort, were to lose its hold, it would be all up with it. It would slowly shrivel on the spot; or at best its wings, unable to expand, would remain as miserable scraps of tissue. The locust does not tear itself away from its sheath; it delicately insinuates itself out of it—I had almost said flows. It is as though it were expelled by a gentle pressure.

Let us return to the wings and elytra, which have made no apparent progress since their emergence from their sheaths. They are still mere stumps, with fine longitudinal seams; almost like little ropes'-ends. Their expansion, which will occupy more than three hours, is reserved for the end, when the insect is completely moulted and in its normal position.

We have just seen the insect turn head uppermost. This reversal causes the wings and elytra to fall into their natural position. Extremely flexible, and yielding to their own weight, they had previously drooped backwards with their free extremities pointing towards the head of the insect as it hung reversed.

Now, still by reason of their own weight, their position is rectified and they point in the normal direction. They are no longer curved like the petals of a flower; they no longer point the wrong way; but they retain the same miserable aspect.

In its perfect state the wing is like a fan. A radiating bundle of strong nervures runs through it in the direction of its length and forms the framework of the fan, which is readily furled and unfurled. The intervals are crossed by innumerable cross-nervures of slighter substance, which make of the whole a network of rectangular meshes. The elytrum, which is heavier and much less extensive, repeats this structure.

At present nothing of this mesh-work is visible. Nothing can be seen but a few wrinkles, a few flexuous furrows, which announce that the stumps are bundles of tissue cunningly folded and reduced to the smallest possible volume.

The expansion of the wing begins near the shoulder. Where nothing precise could be distinguished at the outset we soon perceive a diaphanous surface subdivided into meshes of beautiful precision.

Little by little, with a deliberation that escapes the magnifier, this area increases its bounds, at the expense of the shapeless bundle at the end of the wing. In vain I let my eyes rest on the spot where the expanding network meets the still shapeless bundle; I can distinguish nothing. But wait a little, and the fine-meshed tissues will appear with perfect distinctness.

To judge from this first examination, one would guess that an organisable fluid is rapidly congealing into a network of nervures; one seems to be watching a process of crystallisation comparable, in its rapidity, to that of a saturated saline solution as seen through a microscope. But no; this is not what is actually happening. Life does not do its work so abruptly.

I detach a half-developed wing and bring it under the powerful eye of the microscope. This time I am satisfied. On the confines of the transparent network, where an extension of that network seems to be gradually weaving itself out of nothing, I can see that the meshes are really already in existence. I can plainly recognise the longitudinal nervures, which are already stiff; and I can also see—pale, and without relief—the transverse nervures. I find them all in the terminal stump, and am able to spread out a few of its folds under the microscope.

It is obvious that the wing is not a tissue in the process of making, through which the procreative energy of the vital juices is shooting its shuttle; it is a tissue already complete. To be perfect it lacks only expansion and rigidity, just as a piece of lace or linen needs only to be ironed.

In three hours or more the explanation is complete. The wings and elytra stand erect over the locust's back like an immense set of sails; at first colourless, then of a tender green, like the freshly expanded wings of the Cigale. I am amazed at their expanse when I think of the miserable stumps from which they have expanded. How did so much material contrive to occupy so little space?

There is a story of a grain of hemp-seed that contained all the body-linen of a princess. Here we have something even more astonishing. The hemp-seed of the story needed long years to germinate, to multiply, and at last to give the quantity of hemp required for the trousseau of a princess; but the germ of the locust's wing has expanded to a magnificent sail in a few short hours.

Slowly the superb erection composed of the four flat fan-like pinions assumes rigidity and colour. By to-morrow the colour will have attained the requisite shade. For the first time the wings close fan-wise and lie down in their places; the elytra bend over at their outer edges, forming a flange which lies snugly over the flanks. The transformation is complete. Now the great locust has only to harden its tissues a little longer and to tan the grey of its costume in the ecstasy of the sunshine. Let us leave it to its happiness, and return to an earlier moment.

The four stumps which emerge from their coverings shortly after the rupture of the corselet along its median line contain, as we have seen, the wings and elytra with their innumerable nervures. If not perfect, at least the general plan is complete, with all its innumerable details. To expand these miserable bundles and convert them into an ample set of sails it is enough that the organism, acting like a force-pump, should force into the channels already prepared a stream of humours kept in reserve for this moment and this purpose, the most laborious of the whole process. As the capillary channels are prepared in advance a slight injection of fluid is sufficient to cause expansion.

But what were these four bundles of tissue while still enclosed in their sheaths? Are the wing-sheaths and the triangular winglets of the larva the moulds whose folds, wrinkles, and sinuosities form their contents in their own image, and so weave the network of the future wings and wing-covers?

Were they really moulds we might for a moment be satisfied. We might tell ourselves: It is quite a simple matter that the thing moulded should conform to the cavity of the mould. But the simplicity is only apparent, for the mould in its turn must somewhere derive the requisite and inextricable complexity. We need not go so far back; we should only be in darkness. Let us keep to the observable facts.

I examine with a magnifying-glass one of the triangular coat-tails of a larva on the point of transformation. I see a bundle of moderately strong nervures radiating fan-wise. I see other nervures in the intervals, pale and very fine. Finally, still more delicate, and running transversely, a number of very short nervures complete the pattern.

Certainly this resembles a rough sketch of the future wing-case; but how different from the mature structure! The disposition of the radiating nervures, the skeleton of the structure, is not at all the same; the network formed by the cross-nervures gives no idea whatever of the complex final arrangement. The rudimentary is succeeded by the infinitely complex; the clumsy by the infinitely perfect, and the same is true of the sheath of the wing and the final condition of its contents, the perfect wing.

It is perfectly evident, when we have the preparatory as well as the final condition of the wing before our eyes, that the wing-sheath of the larva is not a simple mould which elaborates the tissue enclosed in its own image and fashions the wing after the complexities of its own cavity.

The future wing is not contained in the sheath as a bundle, which will astonish us, when expanded, by the extent and extreme complication of its surface. Or, to speak more exactly, it is there, but in a potential state. Before becoming an actual thing it is a virtual thing which is not yet, but is capable of becoming. It is there as the oak is inside the acorn.

A fine transparent cushion limits the free edge of the embryo wing and the embryo wing-case. Under a powerful microscope we can perceive therein a few doubtful lineaments of the future lace-work. This might well be the factory in which life will shortly set its materials in movement. Nothing more is visible; nothing that will make us foresee the prodigious network in which each mesh must have its form and place predetermined with geometrical exactitude.

In order that the organisable material can shape itself as a sheet of gauze and describe the inextricable labyrinth of the nervuration, there must be something better and more wonderful than a mould. There is a prototypical plan, an ideal pattern, which imposes a precise position upon each atom of the tissue. Before the material commences to circulate the configuration is already virtually traced, the courses of the plastic currents are already mapped out. The stones of our buildings co-ordinate according to the considered plan of the architect; they form an ideal assemblage before they exist as a concrete assemblage.

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

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

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

Whosoever would gain, without wearisome delays, a glimpse of the inconceivable dexterity with which the forces of life can labour, has only to consider the great locust of the vineyard. The insect will show him that which is hidden from our curiosity by extreme deliberation in the germinating seed, the opening leaf, and the budding flower. We cannot see the grass grow; but we can watch the growth of the locust's wings.

Amazement seizes upon us before this sublime phantasmagoria of the grain of hemp which in a few hours has been transmuted into the finest cloth. What a mighty artist is Life, shooting her shuttle to weave the wings of the locust—one of those insignificant insects of whom long ago Pliny said: In his tam parcis, fere nullis, quae vis, quae sapientia, quam inextricabilis perfectio!

How truly was the old naturalist inspired! Let us repeat with him: "What power, what wisdom, what inconceivable perfection in this least of secrets that the vineyard locust has shown us!"

I have heard that a learned inquirer, for whom life is only a conflict of physical and chemical forces, does not despair of one day obtaining artificially organisable matter—protoplasm, as the official jargon has it. If it were in my power I should hasten to satisfy this ambitious gentleman.

But so be it: you have really prepared protoplasm. By force of meditation, profound study, minute care, impregnable patience, your desire is realised: you have extracted from your apparatus an albuminous slime, easily corruptible and stinking like the devil at the end of a few days: in short, a nastiness. What are you going to do with it?

Organise something? Will you give it the structure of a living edifice? Will you inject it with a hypodermic syringe between two impalpable plates to obtain were it only the wing of a fly?

That is very much what the locust does. It injects its protoplasm between the two surfaces of an embryo organ, and the material forms a wing-cover, because it finds as guide the ideal archetype of which I spoke but now. It is controlled in the labyrinth of its course by a device anterior to the injection: anterior to the material itself.

This archetype, the co-ordinator of forms; this primordial regulator; have you got it on the end of your syringe? No! Then throw away your product. Life will never spring from that chemical filth.



CHAPTER XXI

THE PINE-CHAFER

The orthodox denomination of this insect is Melolontha fullo, Lin. It does not answer, I am very well aware, to be difficult in matters of nomenclature; make a noise of some sort, affix a Latin termination, and you will have, as far as euphony goes, the equivalent of many of the tickets pasted in the entomologist's specimen boxes. The cacophony would be excusable if the barbarous term signified nothing but the creature signified; but as a rule this name possesses, hidden in its Greek or other roots, a certain meaning in which the novice hopes to find instruction.

The hope is a delusion. The learned term refers to subtleties difficult to comprehend, and of very indifferent importance. Too often it leads the student astray, giving him glimpses that have nothing whatever in common with the truth as we know it from observation. Very often the errors implied by such names are flagrant; sometimes the allusions are ridiculous, grotesque, or merely imbecile. So long as they have a decent sound, how infinitely preferable are locutions in which etymology finds nothing to dissect! Of such would be the word fullo, were it not that it already has a meaning which immediately occurs to the mind. This Latin expression means a fuller; a person who kneads and presses cloth under a stream of water, making it flexible and ridding it of the asperities of weaving. What connection has the subject of this chapter with the fuller of cloth? I may puzzle my head in vain: no acceptable reply will occur to me.

The term fullo as applied to an insect is found in Pliny. In one chapter the great naturalist treats of remedies against jaundice, fevers, and dropsy. A little of everything enters into this antique pharmacy: the longest tooth of a black dog; the nose of a mouse wrapped in a pink cloth; the right eye of a green lizard torn from the living animal and placed in a bag of kid-skin; the heart of a serpent, cut out with the left hand; the four articulations of the tail of a scorpion, including the dart, wrapped tightly in a black cloth, so that for three days the sick man can see neither the remedy nor him that applies it; and a number of other extravagances. We may well close the book, alarmed at the slough of the imbecility whence the art of healing has come down to us.

In the midst of these imbecilities, the preludes of medicine, we find a mention of the "fuller." Tertium qui vocatur fullo, albis guttis, dissectum utrique lacerto adalligant, says the text. To treat fevers divide the fuller beetle in two parts and apply half under the right arm and half under the left.



Now what did the ancient naturalist mean by the term "fuller beetle"? We do not precisely know. The qualification albis guttis, white spots, would fit the Pine-chafer well enough, but it is not sufficient to make us certain. Pliny himself does not seem to have been very certain of the identity of the remedy. In his time men's eyes had not yet learned to see the insect world. Insects were too small; they were well enough for amusing children, who would tie them to the end of a long thread and make them walk in circles, but they were not worthy of occupying the attention of a self-respecting man.

Pliny apparently derived the word from the country-folk, always poor observers and inclined to extravagant denominations. The scholar accepted the rural locution, the work perhaps of the imagination of childhood, and applied it at hazard without informing himself more particularly. The word came down to us embalmed with age; our modern naturalists have accepted it, and thus one of our handsomest insects has become the "fuller." The majesty of antiquity has consecrated the strange appellation.

In spite of all my respect for the antique, I cannot myself accept the term "fuller," because under the circumstances it is absurd. Common sense should be considered before the aberrations of nomenclature. Why not call our subject the Pine-chafer, in reference to the beloved tree, the paradise of the insect during the two or three weeks of its aerial life? Nothing could be simpler, or more appropriate, to give the better reason last.

We have to wander for ages in the night of absurdity before we reach the radiant light of the truth. All our sciences witness to this fact; even the science of numbers. Try to add a column of Roman figures; you will abandon the task, stupefied by the confusion of symbols; and will recognise what a revolution was made in arithmetic by the discovery of the zero. Like the egg of Columbus, it was a very little thing, but it had to be thought of.

While hoping that the future will sink the unfortunate "fuller" in oblivion, we will use the term "pine chafer" between ourselves. Under that name no one can possibly mistake the insect in question, which frequents the pine-tree only.

It has a handsome and dignified appearance, rivalling that of Oryctes nasicornis. Its costume, if it has not the metallic splendour dear to the Scarabaei, the Buprestes and the rose-beetles, is at least unusually elegant. A black or chestnut background is thickly sown with capriciously shaped spots of white velvet; a fashion both modest and handsome.

The male bears at the end of his short antennae a kind of plume consisting of seven large superimposed plates or leaves, which, opening and closing like the sticks of a fan, betray the emotions that possess him. At first sight it seems that this magnificent foliage must form a sense-organ of great perfection, capable of perceiving subtle odours, or almost inaudible vibrations of the air, or other phenomena to which our senses fail to respond; but the female warns us that we must not place too much reliance on such ideas; for although her maternal duties demand a degree of impressionability at least as great as that of the male, yet the plumes of her antennae are extremely meagre, containing only six narrow leaves.

What then is the use of the enormous fan-like structure of the male antennae? The seven-leaved apparatus is for the Pine-chafer what his long vibrating horns are to the Cerambyx and the panoply of the head to the Onthophagus and the forked antlers of the mandibles to the Stag-beetle. Each decks himself after his manner in these nuptial extravagances.

This handsome chafer appears towards the summer solstice, almost simultaneously with the first Cigales. The punctuality of its appearance gives it a place in the entomological calendar, which is no less punctual than that of the seasons. When the longest days come, those days which seem endless and gild the harvests, it never fails to hasten to its tree. The fires of St. John, reminiscences of the festivals of the Sun, which the children light in the village streets, are not more punctual in their date.

At this season, in the hours of twilight, the Pine-chafer comes every evening if the weather is fine, to visit the pine-trees in the garden. I follow its evolutions with my eyes. With a silent flight, not without spirit, the males especially wheel and wheel about, extending their great antennary plumes; they go to and fro, to and fro, a procession of flying shadows upon the pale blue of the sky in which the last light of day is dying. They settle, take flight again, and once more resume their busy rounds. What are they doing up there during the fortnight of their festival?

The answer is evident: they are courting their mates, and they continue to render their homage until the fall of night. In the morning both males and females commonly occupy the lower branches. They lie there isolated, motionless, indifferent to passing events. They do not avoid the hand about to seize them. Most of them are hanging by their hind legs and nibbling the pine-needles; they seem to be gently drowsing with the needles at their mouths. When twilight returns they resume their frolics.

To watch these frolics in the tops of the trees is hardly possible; let us try to observe them in captivity. Four pairs are collected in the morning and placed, with some twigs off the pine-tree, in a spacious; cage. The sight is hardly worth my attention; deprived of the possibility of flight, the insects cannot behave as in the open. At most I see a male from time to time approaching his beloved; he spreads out the leaves of his antennae, and agitates them so that they shiver slightly; he is perhaps informing himself if he is welcome. Thereupon he puts on his finest airs and exhibits his attainments. It is a useless display; the female is motionless, as though insensible to these demonstrations. Captivity has sorrows that are hard to overcome. This was all that I was able to see. Mating, it appears, must take place during the later hours of the night, so that I missed the propitious moment.

One detail in particular interested me. The Pine-chafer emits a musical note. The female is as gifted as the male. Does the lover make use of his faculty as a means of seduction and appeal? Does the female answer the chirp of her innamorata by a similar chirp? That this may be so under normal conditions, amidst the foliage of the pines, is extremely probable; but I can make no assertion, as I have never heard anything of the kind either among the pines or in my laboratory.

The sound is produced by the extremity of the abdomen, which gently rises and falls, rubbing, as it does so, with its last few segments, the hinder edge of the wing-covers, which are held firm and motionless. There is no special equipment on the rubbing surface nor on the surface rubbed. The magnifying-glass looks in vain for the fine striations usually found in the musical instruments of the insect world. All is smooth on either hand. How then is the sound engendered?

Rub the end of the moistened finger on a strip of glass, or a window-pane, and you will obtain a very audible sound, somewhat analogous to that emitted by the chafer. Better still, use a scrap of indiarubber to rub the glass with, and you will reproduce with some fidelity the sound in question. If the proper rhythm is observed the imitation is so successful that one might well be deceived by it.

In the musical apparatus of the Pine-chafer the pad of the finger-tip and the scrap of indiarubber are represented by the soft abdomen of the insect, and the glass is represented by the blade of the wing-cover, which forms a thin, rigid plate, easily set in vibration. The sound-mechanism of the Pine-chafer is thus of the very simplest description.



INDEX

A

Acorn-Weevil, see Elephant-Beetle

Ameles, see Mantis, the Grey

Anacreon, on the Cigale, 9

Ant, fable of the Cigale and the, 1-16 Devours the Cigale, 9 Robs the Cigale, 8

Arum, Serpent or Putrid, the, attracts and captures insects by means of its offensive effluvia, 230-2

B

Balaninus, see Elephant-Beetle

Bean, ancestry of, 258-9

Bean, see Haricot

Bean-Weevil, see Weevil

Bees, victims of Philanthus, see latter

Bembex, 168, 172

Bolboceras Gallicus, 217-37 Appearance of, 223 Habits and diet, 226-30 Lodging of, 225

Bruchus pisi, see Pea-Weevil

Bruchus lenti, see Lentil-Weevil

Buprestes, 21

C

Cacan, the, 36-9

Capricornis, 21-2

Cerceris, 172, 178

Chrysomela, 151, 172

Cigale, the, 1-67 Burrow of the, 17-30 Deafness of the, 41-3 Diet, 7 Eggs of the, 45-67 Eggs, hatching of, 61-7 Eggs, method of laying, 50-4 Enemies of the, 47-50 Excavation, method of, 23-7 Fable of Ant and, 1-16 Larva of the, 17-30 Larva, habits of, 61-7 Mechanism of sound, 31-4 Pupa, emergence from, 28 Song of the, 2, 6, 31-44 Species of, 31-6

Cigalo e la Fournigo (Provencal poem), 10-16

Cricket, Field, the, 120-9 Eggs of, 120-2 Excavations of, 124-5 Fertility of, 123 Song of, 126-8

Cricket, Italian, the, 130-5 Appearance of, 130 Song of, 131-4

D

Dermestes, victims of arum, 232

Dioscorides on the Cigale, 29

Diptera, 168, 172

Dog, its love of stenches, 233 Scent of the, 220-22 A truffle-hunter, 218-20

E

Elephant-Beetle (Balaninus or Acorn-Weevil), 238-57 Boring acorns, habit of, 240-4 Eggs, method of laying, 245, 254-7 Motives in boring, 246-50 Snout of, 238-9

Emperor Moth, see Great Peacock Moth

Empusa pauperata, see Mantis

Eucores, 176

G

Golden Gardener, the, 102-19 Cannibal habits of, 111-19 Courtship of, 103-10 Ferocity of, 101-4, 108-10 Nutriment of, 102-10 Vermin killer, as a, 107

Grandville, illustrates La Fontaine's fables, 2

H

Halictus, 176, 178

Haricot bean, the, 282-9

Haricot-Weevil, the, see Weevil

Heredia, J.-M. de, 287-90

Hydnocystus, a fungus, 228

Hymenoptera, habits of, 137-8, 150, 162, 171-2, 175-6

L

La Fontaine, fable of the Cigale and the Ant, 3

Locust, Grey, the, 300-16 Larva of, 300 Metamorphosis of, 300-9 Wing, formation of, 309-15

M

Mantis, the Empusa pauperata, 97

Mantis, the Grey, 96

Mantis, the Praying, 68-101 Cannibalism of, 82-5 Courtship, 79-83 Hunter, as, 68-78 Nest of, 86-101

Melolontha fullo, see Pine-chafer

Minotaur, 225

O

Oak Eggar, the, 202-16, 234-7 Experiments as to sense of smell in males, 208-15 Swarming of males during the mating season, 204-15

Odynerus, 150-1, 172

Osmia tricornis, 173, 175

P

Pea, ancestry of the, 258-9

Pea-Weevil, see Weevil

Peacock Moth, the Great, 179-201, 234-7 Appearance of, 179 Experiments as to sense of smell in males, 184-97 Invasion of house by males, 180-1 Swarming of males, 181-3

Peacock Moth, the Lesser, 197-201

Phalangist, the, 225

Philanthus aviporus, 150-178 Cocoon of, 168 Diet of, 150-1 Larvae of, 168 Methods of killing and robbing bees, 151-160 Motives of robbery, 163-78 Nest of, 167

Philanthus coronatus, 178

Philanthus raptor, 178

Pine-chafer, the, 317-23 Appearance of, 320 Cry of, 322-3 Habits of, 321 Medical qualities of, supposed, 318-19 Name, origin of Latin, 317-18

Pliny, on the Pine-chafer, 318-19

S

Saprinidae, victims of arum, 233

Sapromyzon, the, 222

Scarabaeus, see Golden Scarabaeus

Scent in Insects, see Peacock Moth, Oak Eggar, Bolboceras Gallicus, arum, putrid

Scolia, 171

Sisyphus, legend of, 139

Sisyphus Beetle, the, 136-49 Burrow of, 143 Larva of, 147-9 Mating of, 142-3 Paternal instinct of 142-6 Pellet of, 142-9

T

Tachytus, 172

Tigno, nest of Mantis, 99-101

Truffle-Beetle, 222

Truffle-Dog, 218-20

W

Weevil, Acorn, see Elephant-Beetle

Weevil, the Lentil, 291

Weevil, the Haricot, 282-94 Habits of, 291-6 Invasion of, 284 Larvae, 297-9

Weevil, the Pea, 258-81, 295 Description of, 261 Enemy, its chief, 280-1 Habits, 261-5 (Deductions to be drawn from), 273-4 Larvae of, 268-71, 275-6



FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: Whether the Cigale is absolutely deaf or not, it is certain that one Cigale would be able to perceive another's cry. The vibrations of the male Cigale's cry would cause a resonance, a vibration, in the body cavities of other male Cigales, and to a lesser extent in the smaller cavities in the bodies of the females. Other sounds would cause a slight shock, if loud enough, but not a perceptible vibration May not this vibration—felt as in a cathedral we feel the vibrations of the organ-pipes in the bones of the chest and head or on the covers of the hymn-book in our hands—serve to keep the insects together, and enable the females to keep within sight of the males? The sight of an insect is in one sense poor—it consists of a kind of mosaic picture, and for one insect to distinguish another clearly the distance between them must not be very great. Certain gregarious birds and fish whose colouring is protective have a habit of showing their white bellies as they swerve on changing their direction. These signals help to keep the flock together. The white scut of the rabbit and of certain deer is a signal for other deer or rabbits to follow a frightened flock. It is obviously to the advantage of the Cigale to follow a gregarious habit, if only for purposes of propagation, for this would be facilitated by the sexes keeping together, and, deaf or otherwise, the vibrations of its cry would enable it to do so. It would be easy to show a priori that the perception of such vibrations must cause the insect pleasure, as they stimulate a nervous structure attuned to the perception or capable of the production of certain complex vibrations. The discord of the cry is caused by the fact that it consists of a number of vibrations of different pitch. Some would set the contents of the male resonating cavities in vibration; others would affect the less regular cavities in the thorax of the female. We might compare the Cigale's cry to a sheep-bell. That it is felt and not heard explains its loudness and its grating quality. A Cigale with the resonating cavities destroyed would possibly be lost. The experiment is worth trying.—[TRANS.]]

[Footnote 2: It is not easy to understand why the Mantis should paralyse the cricket with terror while the latter will immediately escape when threatened by other enemies. As many species of Mantis exactly mimic sticks and leaves when motionless for purposes of defence, is it not possible that they mimic their surroundings for purposes of offence as well? It is easy and natural to say that the Mantis presents a terrifying aspect. It does to us, by association; but how can we say that it represents anything of the sort to the probably hypnotic or automatic consciousness of the cricket? What does it really represent, as seen from below? A twig, terminating in a bud, with two branching twigs growing from it, and a harmless nondescript fly or butterfly perched on the back of it. The combination of a familiar sight and a threatening sound would very plausibly result in cautious immobility. As for its instantaneous assumption of the pose, to move instantaneously is the next best thing to not moving at all. It is less likely to startle than a slow movement. Twigs which have been bent get suddenly released in the natural course of events; they do not move slowly. The instantaneous appearance of a twig where no twig was before may possibly give the victim pause; it may halt out of caution, not out of terror.—[TRANS.]]

[Footnote 3: The word "butterfly" is here used, as is the French papillon, as a general term for all Lepidoptera; the insect in question is of course a moth.]

[Footnote 4: Now classified as Lasiocampa quercus.—[TRANS.]]

[Footnote 5: Rabasso is the Provencal name for the truffle; hence a truffle-hunter is known as a rabassier.]

[Footnote 6: Since these lines were written I have found it consuming one of the true tuberaceae, the Tuber Requienii, Tul., of the size of a cherry.]

[Footnote 7: The difficulty in conceiving this theory lies in the fact that the waves travel in straight lines. On the other hand, matter in a state of degradation may expel particles highly energised and of enormous velocity. Most antennae are covered with hairs of inconceivable fineness; others may contain cavities of almost infinite minuteness. Is it not thinkable that they are able to detect, in the gaseous atmosphere, floating particles that are not gaseous? This would not prevent the specialisation of antennae as mere feelers in some insects and crustaceans. The difficulty of such a supposition lies in the fact of discrimination; but if we did not possess a sense of taste or smell discrimination would seem inconceivable in their case also.—[TRANS.]]

[Footnote 8: This classification is now superseded; the Pea and Bean Weevils—Bruchus pisi and Bruchus lenti—are classed as Bruchidae, in the series of Phytophaga. Most of the other weevils are classed as Curculionidae, series Rhyncophora.—[TRANS.]]

[Footnote 9: The Christmas number (Noel) of the Annales politiques et litteraires: Les Enfants juges par leurs peres, 1901.]

[Footnote 10: The American usage is to call acridians grasshoppers and Locustidae locusts. The English usage is to call Locustidae grasshoppers and acridians locusts. The Biblical locust is an acridian.]



Demy 8vo, Cloth, 10/6 net

FABRE: POET OF SCIENCE

By G. V. LEGROS With a Photogravure Frontispiece

This biography is based upon long acquaintance and access to family letters, and is a striking record of a wonderful life.

"Stands out as a really sound, sympathetic, and artistic piece of work.... The simple story of the life-work of an observer of nature in general, and of insects in particular, is unfolded in a manner which makes it as fascinating as a romance."—The Times.

"A rare biography."—Saturday Review.

"It is a prose poem on a great scientist, his simple life and remarkable work."—Daily Graphic.

"Dr. Legros gives us a sympathetic insight into the life and work of the poet scientist, and a just record of a great man."—Daily Express.

"Dr. Legros gives us an exceptionally vivid picture of the man, his toil and trials, his characteristics, and his ways of life."—Everyman.

"A book so packed with charm we have rarely opened."—Evening Standard.

Printed in Great Britain by UNWIN BROTHERS, LIMITED WOKING AND LONDON

THE END