The Life and Love of the Insect

by Jean-Henri Fabre

Where is the egg in that nutritive mass so novel in shape? One would be inclined to place it in the centre of the fat, round paunch. This central point is best-protected against accidents from the outside, best-endowed with an even temperature. Besides, the budding grub would here find a deep layer of food on every side of it and would not be exposed to the mistakes of the first few mouthfuls. Everything being alike on every side of it, it would not be called upon to choose; wherever it chanced to apply its novice tooth, it could continue without hesitation its first dainty repast.

All this seemed so very reasonable that I allowed myself to be led away by it. In the first pear which I explored, slender layer by slender layer, with the blade of a penknife, I looked for the egg in the centre of the paunch, feeling almost certain of finding it there. To my great surprise, it was not there. Instead of being hollow, the [[24]]centre of the pear is full and consists of one continuous, homogeneous alimentary mass.

My deductions, which any observer in my place would certainly have shared, seemed very reasonable; the Scarab, however, is of another way of thinking. We have our logic, of which we are rather proud; the Dung-kneader has hers, which is better than ours in this contingency. She has her own foresight, her own discernment of things; and she places her egg elsewhere.

Fig. 1.—Section of the Sacred Beetle’s pill, showing the egg and the hatching-chamber.

But where? Why, in the narrow part of the pear, in the neck, right at the end. Let us cut this neck lengthwise, taking the necessary precautions, so as not to damage the contents. It is hollowed into a recess with polished and shiny walls. This is the tabernacle of the germ, the hatching-chamber. The egg, which is very large in proportion to the size of the layer, is a long white oval, about 10 millimetres in length by 5 millimetres in its greatest width.[3] A slight empty space separates it on all sides from the chamber-walls. There is no contact with these walls, save at the rear end, which adheres to the top of the recess. Lying horizontally, following the normal position of the pear, the whole of it, excepting the point of attachment, rests upon an air-mattress, most elastic and warmest of beds. Let [[25]]us observe also that the top of the nipple, instead of being smooth and compact like the rest of the pear, is formed of a felt of particles of scrapings, which allows the air sufficient access for the breathing-needs of the egg.

We are now informed. Let us next try to understand the Scarab’s logic. Let us account for the necessity for the pear, that form so strange in entomological industry; let us seek to explain the convenience of the curious situation of the egg. It is dangerous, I know, to venture upon the how and wherefore of things. We easily sink in this mysterious domain where the moving soil gives way beneath the feet, swallowing the foolhardy in the quicksands of error. Must we abandon such excursions, because of the risk? Why should we?

What does our science, so sublime compared with the frailty of our means, so contemptible in the face of the boundless spaces of the unknown, what does our science know of absolute reality? Nothing. The world interests us only because of the ideas which we form of it. Remove the idea and everything becomes sterile, chaos, empty nothingness. An omnium-gatherum of facts is not knowledge, but at most a cold catalogue which we must thaw and quicken at the fire of the mind; we must introduce thought and the light of reason; we must interpret.

Let us adopt this course to explain the work of the Sacred Beetle. Perhaps we shall end by attributing our own logic to the insect. After all, it will be just as remarkable to see a wonderful agreement prevail between that which reason dictates to us and that which instinct dictates to the animal.

A grave danger threatens the Sacred Beetle in its grub state: the drying-up of the food. The crypt in which [[26]]the larval life is spent has a layer of earth, some third of an inch thick, for a ceiling. Of what avail is this slender screen against the canicular heat that burns the soil, baking it like a brick to a far greater depth? The grub’s abode at such times acquires a scorching temperature; when I thrust my hand into it, I feel the moist heat of a Turkish bath.