Let us admit that the accident is repeated, that it even becomes a normal condition; let us suppose that the mother decides to abandon her blue balls and to confide her eggs to the axillæ of the leaves indefinitely. What will this change bring about? The answer is obvious.
Since the grub has once developed without hindrance on a site alien to its habits, it will continue to thrive there from generation to generation; with its intestinal cement it will continue to shape a protective pitcher of the same pattern as the old, but, for want of materials, lacking the thatch of withered florets; in short, its talents will remain what they were in the beginning. [[42]]
This example tells us that the insect, as long as it can accommodate itself to the novel conditions imposed upon it, works in its accustomed fashion; if it cannot do so, it dies rather than change its methods. [[43]]
[1] Cf. The Life of the Grasshopper, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapters i. to v.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[2] Cf. idem: chapter xiv. and passim.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[3] Cf. The Life of the Fly: chapter iii.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[4] Cf. The Life of the Caterpillar, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chapter xiv., in which the activities of one of the Ichneumon-flies, Microgaster glomeratus are described.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[5] Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (fl. 1st century B.C.), the Roman architect and engineer, author of De Architectura.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[6] For the Onitis and Onthophagus Dung-beetles, cf. The Sacred Beetle and Others: chapters xi. and xiv. to xviii.—Translator’s Note. [↑]