Fabre's Book of Insects

by Jean-Henri Fabre

Most insects adopt this simple method of upbringing. They merely choose a dining-room which will be the home of the family once it is hatched, or else a place that will allow the young ones to find suitable fare for themselves. There is no need for the father in such cases. He generally dies without lending the least assistance in the work of setting up his offspring in life.

Things do not always happen, however, in quite such a primitive fashion. There are tribes that provide a dowry for their families, that prepare board and lodging for them in advance. The Bees and Wasps in particular are masters in the industry of making cellars, jars, and satchels, in which the ration of honey is hoarded: they are perfect in the art of creating burrows stocked with the game that forms the food of their grubs.

Well, this enormous labour, which is one of building and provisioning combined, this toil in which the insect’s whole life is spent, is done by the mother alone. It wears her out; it utterly exhausts her. The father drunk with sunlight, stands idle at the edge of the workyard, watching his plucky helpmate at her job.

Why does he not lend the mother a helping hand? It is now or never. Why does he not follow the example of the Swallow couple, both of whom bring their bit of straw, their blob of mortar to the building and their [[200]]Midge to the young ones? He does nothing of the kind. Possibly he puts forward his comparative weakness as an excuse. It is a poor argument; for to cut a disk out of a leaf, to scrape some cotton from a downy plant, to collect a little bit of cement in muddy places would not overtax his strength. He could very easily help, at any rate as a labourer; he is quite fit to gather materials for the mother, with her greater intelligence, to fit in place. The real reason of his inactivity is sheer incapability.

It is strange that the most gifted of the industrial insects should know nothing of a father’s duties. One would expect the highest talents to be developed in him by the needs of the young; but he remains as dull-witted as a Butterfly, whose family is reared at so small a cost. We are baffled at every turn by the question: Why is a particular instinct given to one insect and denied to another?

It baffles us so thoroughly that we are extremely surprised when we find in the scavenger the noble qualities that are denied to the honey-gatherer. Various Scavenger Beetles are accustomed to help in the burden of housekeeping, and know the value of working in double harness. The Geotrupes couple, for instance, prepare their larva’s food together: the father lends his mate the assistance of his powerful press in the manufacture of the tightly packed sausage-shaped ration. He is a splendid [[201]]example of domestic habits, and one extremely surprising amid the general egoism.

To this example my constant studies of the subject have enabled me to add three others, all furnished by the Guild of Scavengers.

One of them is the Sisyphus, the smallest and most zealous of all our pill-rollers. He is the liveliest and most agile of them all, and recks nothing of awkward somersaults and headlong falls on the impossible roads to which his obstinacy brings him back again and again. It was in reference to these wild gymnastics that Latreille gave him the name of Sisyphus.

As you know, that unhappy wretch of classical fame had a terrible task. He was forced to roll a huge stone uphill; and each time he succeeded in toiling to the top of the mountain the stone slipped from his grasp and rolled to the bottom. I like this myth. It is the history of a good many of us. So far as I am concerned, for half a century and more I have painfully climbed the steep ascent, spending my strength recklessly in the struggle to hoist up to safety that crushing burden, my daily bread. Hardly is the loaf balanced when it slips off, slides down, and is lost in the abyss.

The Sisyphus with whom we are now concerned knows none of these bitter trials. Untroubled by the steep slopes he gaily trundles his load, at one time bread for himself, at another bread for his children. He is very [[202]]scarce in these parts; and I should never have managed to secure a suitable number of subjects for my studies had it not been for an assistant whom I have already mentioned more than once.