Now what symptoms herald their return to activity? We know the symptoms: the tarsi tremble, the palpi quiver, the antennæ wave to and fro. A man emerging from a deep sleep stretches his limbs, yawns and rubs his eyes. The insect awaking from the etheric sleep likewise has its own fashion of marking its recovery of consciousness: it flutters its tiny digits and the more mobile of its organs.
Let us now consider an insect which, upset by a shock, perturbed by some sort of excitement, is believed to be shamming dead, lying on its back. The return to activity is announced exactly in the same fashion and in the same order as after the stupefying effect of ether. First the tarsi quiver; then the palpi and antennæ wave feebly to and fro.
If the creature were really shamming, what need would it have of these minute preliminaries to the awakening? Once the danger has disappeared, or is deemed to have done so, why does the insect not swiftly get upon its feet, to make off as quickly as possible, instead of dallying with untimely pretences? I am quite sure that, once the Bear was gone, the comrade who had shammed dead under the animal's nose did not think of wasting time in stretching himself or rubbing his eyes. He jumped up at once and took to his heels.
And the insect is supposed to carry its cunning to the length of counterfeiting resuscitation down to the least details! No, no and again no; it would be madness. Those quiverings of the tarsi, those awakening movements of the palpi and antennæ are the obvious proof of a genuine torpor, now coming to an end, a torpor similar to that induced by ether but less intense; they show that the insect struck motionless by my artifice is not shamming dead, as the vulgar idiom has it and as the fashionable theories repeat. It is really hypnotized.
A shock which disturbs its nerve-centres, an abrupt fright which seizes upon it reduce it to a state of somnolence like that of the bird which is swung for a second or two with its head under its wing. A sudden terror sometimes deprives us human beings of the power of movement, sometimes kills us. Why should not the insect's organism, so delicate and subtle, give way beneath the grip of fear and momentarily succumb? If the emotion be slight, the insect shrinks into itself for an instant, quickly recovers and makes off; if it be profound, hypnosis supervenes, with its prolonged immobility.
The insect, which knows nothing of death and therefore cannot counterfeit it, knows nothing either of suicide, that desperate means of cutting short excessive misery. No authentic example has ever been given, to my knowledge, of an animal of any kind robbing itself of its own life. That those most richly endowed with the capacity of affection sometimes allow themselves to die of grief I grant you; but there is a great difference between this and stabbing one's self or cutting one's throat.
Yet the recollection occurs to me of the Scorpion's suicide, sworn to by some, denied by others. What truth is there in the story of the Scorpion who, surrounded by a circle of fire, puts an end to his suffering by stabbing himself with his poisoned sting? Let us see for ourselves:
Circumstances favour me. I am at this moment rearing, in large earthen pans, with a bed of sand and with potsherds for shelter, a hideous menagerie which hardly comes up to my expectations as regards the study of morals.1 I will profit by it in another way. It consists of some twenty-four specimens of Buthus occitanus, the large White Scorpion of the south of France. The odious animal abounds, always isolated, under the flat stones of the neighbouring hills, in the sandy spots which enjoy the most sunlight. It has a detestable reputation.
1 For the habits of the White or Languedocian Scorpion, cf. The Life and Love of the Insect: chaps. xvii. and xviii.—Translator's Note.