I speak of my son Paul, a little chap of seven. My assiduous companion on my hunting expeditions, he knows better than any one of his age the secrets of the Cicada, the Locust, the Cricket, and especially the Dung-beetle, his great delight. Twenty paces away, his sharp eyes will distinguish the real mound that marks a burrow from casual heaps of earth; his delicate ears catch the Grasshopper’s faint stridulation, which to me remains silent. He lends me his sight and hearing; and I, in exchange, present him with ideas, which he receives attentively, raising wide, blue, questioning eyes to mine.
Little Paul’s exploits are innumerable, and nothing deters him. “He will gather handfuls [[260]]of the most repulsive caterpillars with no more apprehension than if he were picking a bunch of violets.” Several times a day he scrupulously inspects the under sides of the dead moles placed for purposes of observation in the harmas, takes note of the labours of the Necrophori, and, without more ado, seizes upon the fugitives and returns them to their workshop. He alone of the household ventures to lend his assistance in such a disgusting task.
Little Paul is always equal to the circumstances. If he is cool he is no less enthusiastic, but it is a well-directed enthusiasm. For proof I need only cite the night of the Great Peacock, the honour of which was due almost wholly to little Paul.
It was a “memorable night,” the night of the Great Peacock.
Who does not know the magnificent Moth, the largest in Europe, clad in maroon velvet with a necktie of white fur? The wings, with their sprinkling of grey and brown, crossed by a faint zigzag and edged with smoky white, have in the centre a round patch, a great eye with a black pupil and a variegated iris containing successive black, white, chestnut, and purple arcs.
Well, on the morning of the 6th of May, a female emerges from her cocoon in my presence, on [[261]]the table of my insect laboratory. I forthwith cloister her, still damp with the humours of the hatching, under a wire-gauze bell-jar. For the rest, I cherish no particular plans. I incarcerate her from mere habit, the habit of the observer always on the look-out for what may happen.
It was a lucky thought. At nine o’clock in the evening, just as the household is going to bed, there is a great stir in the room next to mine. Little Paul, half-undressed, is rushing about, jumping and stamping, knocking the chairs over like a mad thing. I hear him call me:
“Come quick!” he screams. “Come and see these Moths, big as birds! The room is full of them!”
I hurry in. There is enough to justify the child’s enthusiastic and hyperbolical exclamations, an invasion as yet unprecedented in our house, a raid of giant Moths. Four are already caught and lodged in a bird-cage. Others, more numerous, are fluttering on the ceiling.
At this sight, the prisoner of the morning is recalled to my mind.
“Put on your things, laddie,” I say to my son. “Leave your cage and come with me. We shall see something interesting.”
We run downstairs to go to my study, which occupies the right wing of the house. In the kitchen I find the servant, who is also bewildered by what is happening and stands flicking her apron at great Moths whom she took at first for Bats.
The Great Peacock, it would seem, has taken [[262]]possession of pretty well every part of the house. What will it be around my prisoner, the cause of this incursion? Luckily, one of the two windows of the study had been left open. The approach is not blocked.
We enter the room, candle in hand. What we see is unforgettable. With a soft flick-flack the great Moths fly around the bell-jar, alight, set off again, come back, fly up to the ceiling and down. They rush at the candle, putting it out with a stroke of their wings; they descend on our shoulders, clinging to our clothes, grazing our faces. The scene suggests a wizard’s cave, with its whirl of Bats. Little Paul holds my hand tighter than usual, to keep up his courage.
How many of them are there? About a score. Add to these the number that have strayed into the kitchen, the nursery, and the other rooms of the house; and the total of those who have arrived from the outside cannot fall far short of forty. As I said, it was a memorable evening, this Great Peacock evening. Coming from every direction and apprised I know not how, here are forty lovers eager to pay their respects to the marriageable bride born that morning amid the mysteries of my study.[9]
How could the news of the joyful event have reached them? No doubt by some mysterious [[263]]wireless telegraphy which has not yet found its Branly.
A few days later the miracle was repeated before the wondering eyes of the naturalist and his faithful acolyte, by another moth, which in this case celebrated its nuptials by daylight in the bright sunshine.
Let us hasten to say that the entomological zeal of this little moth-hunter did not fade with the feverish activity of the very young. As we see him in 1897, at the age of seven, so we find him at fifteen in 1906. The importance and value of his services had only increased as his capacities increased, and as the vigour and muscular activity of his beloved father diminished. He lent him his limbs for excursions by day and by night.
What will he not do to please his father? As eagerly as he lends him his legs on his long expeditions, he lends him his arms for all the tasks that are forbidden his eighty years: for example, the excavation of the deep galleries of certain burrowing insects.
The rest of the family, including the mother, being no less zealous, commonly accompanies us. Their eyes are none too many when the trench grows deep and the tiny details uncovered by the spade have to be scanned from a distance. What one does not see, another does. “Huber, having [[264]]grown blind, studied bees through the meditation of a sharp-sighted and devoted servant. I am better off than the great Swiss naturalist. My own sight, which is still pretty good, although a good deal fatigued, is assisted by the sharp-sighted eyes of my whole family. If I am still able to pursue my investigations I owe it to them; let me thank them duly!”[10]