Insect life: Souvenirs of a naturalist

by Jean-Henri Fabre

I taught the little ones to read syllables, the middle ones to hold a pen in the right way while writing a few words of dictation on their knees; for the eldest I unveiled the secrets of fractions, and even the mysteries of the hypotenuse. And the only means I had to keep this restless crowd in order, give each mind appropriate food, arouse attention, expel dulness from the gloomy room whose very walls dripped melancholy, were my tongue and a bit of chalk.

For that matter there was equal disdain in the other classes for all which was not Latin or Greek. One instance will suffice to show the style in which physical science was treated, now so large a part of education. The principal of this college was an excellent man—the worthy Abbé X, who, not anxious himself to grow green peas and bacon, turned over such matters to some relation of his, and undertook to teach physical science.

[To face p. 272.

MASON BEES—CHALICODOMA MURARIA ON OLD NEST

Let us attend one of his lessons, which happens to be on the barometer. By good luck the college owned one. It was an old article, very dusty, hung high out of reach of profane hands, and bearing on [[273]]its face in large letters the words, Storm, Rain, Fine. “The barometer,” began the good abbé, addressing himself to his disciples—he used a fatherly second person singular to each,—“the barometer gives notice of good or bad weather. Thou seest the words written here—Storm, Rain—thou seest, Bastien?” “I see,” replies Bastien, the most mischievous of the troop. He has run through his book, and knows more about the barometer than does his professor. “It is composed,” the abbé goes on, “of a curved glass tube full of mercury which rises and falls according to the weather. The small branch of this tube is open; the other—the other—we shall see as to the other. Bastien—Get on this chair, and just feel with the tip of thy finger if the long branch is open or closed. I do not quite remember.” Bastien goes to the chair, stands as high as he can on tip-toe, and feels the top of the long column with a finger tip. Then, with a slight smile under the down of his dawning moustache, he replies, “Yes, exactly; yes, the long branch is open at the top. I can feel the hollow.” And to corroborate his mendacious statement he went on moving his forefinger on the top of the tube, while his co-disciples, accomplices in mischief, stifled their laughter as best they could. The abbé said calmly, “That will do. Come down, Bastien. Gentlemen, write in your notes that the long branch of the barometer is open. You might forget it. I had forgotten it myself.”

Thus were physics taught. Things mended, however; a master came, and came to stay,—one who knew that the long branch of a barometer is [[274]]closed. I obtained tables on which my pupils could write instead of scrawling on their knees, and as my class grew daily larger, it ended by being divided. As soon as I had an assistant to look after the younger ones, things changed for the better.

Among the subjects taught, one pleased master and pupils equally. This was out-of-door geometry, practical surveying. The college had none of the necessary outfit, but with my large emoluments—700 francs, if you please!—I could not hesitate as to making the outlay. A measuring chain and stakes, a level, square, and compass were bought at my expense. A tiny graphometer, hardly bigger than one’s palm, and worth about 4s. 2d., was furnished by the college. We had no tripod, and I had one made. In short, my outfit was complete. When May came, once a week the gloomy class-room was exchanged for the fields, and we all felt it as a holiday. There were disputes as to the honour of carrying the stakes, divided into packets of three, and more than one shoulder as we went through the town felt glorified in the sight of all by the learned burden. I myself—why conceal it?—was not without a certain satisfaction at carrying tenderly the most precious part of the apparatus, the famous four-and-twopenny graphometer. The scene of operations was an uncultivated pebbly plain—a harmas, as we call it in these parts. No curtain of live hedge, no bushes, hindered me from keeping an eye upon my followers; here—an all important condition—I need not fear temptation from green apricots for my scholars. There was free scope for all imaginable [[275]]polygons; trapezes and triangles might be joined at will. Wide distances suggested plenty of elbow room, and there was even an ancient building, once a dovecote, which lent its vertical lines to the service of the graphometer.

Now from the very first a suspicious something caught my attention. If a scholar were sent to plant a distant stake I saw him frequently pause, stoop, rise, seek about, and stoop again, forgetful of straight line and of signals. Another, whose work it was to pick up pegs, forgot the iron spike and took a pebble instead; and a third, deaf to the measurements of the angle, crumbled up a clod. The greater number were caught licking a bit of straw, and polygons stood still, and diagonals came to grief. What could be the mystery? I inquired, and all was explained. Searcher and observer born, the scholar was well aware of what the master was ignorant of—namely, that a great black bee makes earthen nests on the pebbles of the harmas, and that in these nests there is honey. My surveyors were opening and emptying the cells with a straw. I was instructed in the proper method. The honey, though somewhat strong-flavoured, is very acceptable; I in turn acquired a taste for it, and joined the nest-hunters. Later, the polygon was resumed. Thus it was that for the first time I saw Réaumur’s Mason Bee, knowing neither its history nor its historian.

This splendid Hymenopteron, with its dark violet wings and costume of black velvet, its rustic constructions on the sun-warmed pebbles among the thyme, its honey, which brought diversion from the severities [[276]]of compass and square, made a strong impression on my mind, and I wished to know more about it than my pupils had taught me—namely, how to rob the cells of their honey with a straw. Just then my bookseller had for sale a magnificent work on insects, The Natural History of Articulated Animals, by de Castelnau, E. Blanchard, and Lucas. It was enriched with many engravings which caught the eye. But alas, it had a price—such a price! What did that matter? My 700 francs ought surely to suffice for everything—food for the mind as well as for the body. That which I bestowed on the one I retrenched from the other—a balance of accounts to which whoever takes science for a livelihood must needs resign himself. The purchase was made. That day I bled my university stipend abundantly; I paid away a whole month of it. It took a miracle of parsimony to fill up the enormous deficit.