The Life and Love of the Insect

by Jean-Henri Fabre

To the Egyptian author, therefore, the Scarab’s larva was unknown. And if, by chance, he had had before his eyes the shell of the insect inhabited by a fat, big-bellied worm, he would never have suspected in the foul and ugly animal the sober beauty of the future Scarab. According to the ideas of the time, ideas long maintained, the sacred insect had neither father nor mother: an error excusable in the midst of the simplicity of the [[56]]ancients, for here the two sexes are outwardly indistinguishable. It was born of the ordure that formed its ball; and from its birth dated the appearance of the nymph, that amber gem displaying, in a perfectly recognizable form, the features of the full-grown insect.

In the eyes of all antiquity, the Sacred Beetle begins to be born to life at the moment when he can be recognized, not before; else we should have the as yet unsuspected worm of affiliation. The twenty-eight days, therefore, during which, as Horapollo tells us, the offspring of the insect quickens, represent the nymphal phase. This period has been the object of special attention in my studies. It varies, but within narrow limits. The notes taken mention thirty-three days as the longest duration and twenty-one as the shortest. The average, supplied by a score of observations, is twenty-eight days. This identical number twenty-eight, this number of four weeks appears as such and oftener than the others. Horapollo spoke truly: the real insect takes life in the interval of a lunar month.

The four weeks past, behold the Scarab in his final shape: the shape, yes, but not the colouring, which is very strange when the chrysalis casts its skin. The head, legs and thorax are a dark red, except the denticulations, which are a smoky brown. The abdomen is an opaque white; the wing-cases are a transparent white, very faintly tinged with yellow. This majestic dress, combining the red of the cardinal’s cassock with the white of the priest’s alb, is but temporary and turns darker by degrees, to make way for a uniform of ebon black. About a month is necessary for the horny armour to acquire a firm consistency and a definite hue.

At last, the Scarab is fully matured. Awaking within [[57]]him is the delicious restlessness of an approaching liberty. He, hitherto the son of the darkness, foresees the gladness of the light. His longing is great to burst the shell, to emerge from below ground and come into the sun; but the difficulty of liberating himself is far from small. Will he escape from the natal cradle, now become an odious prison? Or will he not escape? It depends.

It is generally in August that the Sacred Beetle is ripe for the delivery: in August, save for rare exceptions, the most torrid, dry and scorching month of the year. Should there not then come, from time to time, a shower that to some slight extent assuages the panting earth, then the cell to be burst and the wall to be broken through defy the strength and patience of the insect, which is powerless against all that hardness. By dint of a prolonged desiccation, the soft original matter has become an insuperable rampart; it has turned into a sort of brick baked in the oven of the dog-days.

I need hardly say that I have not failed to experiment with the insect in these difficult circumstances. Pear-shaped shells are gathered containing the full-grown Scarab, who is on the point of issuing, in view of the lateness of the season. These shells, already dry and very hard, are laid in a box where they retain their aridity. A little earlier in one case, a little later in the other, I hear the sharp grating of a rasp inside each shell. It is the prisoner working to make himself an outlet by scraping the wall with the rake of his shield and fore-feet. Two or three days elapse and the delivery seems to make no progress.

I come to the assistance of a pair of them by myself opening a loop-hole with the point of a knife. According to my idea, this first breach will help the egress of the [[58]]recluse by offering him a place to start upon, an exit that only needs widening. But not at all: these favoured ones advance no quicker with their work than the rest.

In less than a fortnight, silence prevails in all the shells. The prisoners, worn out with ineffectual efforts, have perished. I break the caskets containing the deceased. A meagre pinch of dust, representing hardly an average pea in bulk, is all that the sturdy implements—rasp, saw, harrow and rake—have succeeded in sundering from the invincible wall.

Other shells, of a similar hardness, are wrapped in a wet rag and enclosed in a flask. When the moisture has soaked through them, I relieve them of their wrapper and keep them in the corked flask. This time, events take a very different turn. Softened to a nicety by the wet rag, the shells burst, ripped open by the shove of the prisoner, who props himself boldly on his legs, using his back as a lever; or else, scraped away at one point, they crumble to pieces and yawn with a wide breach. The success is complete. In each case, the delivery is effected without impediment; a few drops of water have brought them the joys of the sun.

For the second time, Horapollo was right. Certainly, it is not the mother, as the old author says, who throws her ball into the water: it is the clouds that provide the liberating ablution, the rain that facilitates the ultimate release. In the natural state, things must happen as in my experiments. In August, in a burnt soil, under a thin screen of earth, the shells, baked like bricks, are for most of the time as hard as pebbles. It is impossible for the insect to wear out its casket and escape from it. But, should a shower come upon the scene—that life-giving baptism which the seed of the plant and the [[59]]family of the Scarab alike await within the ashes of the soil—should a little rain fall, soon the fields will present the appearance of a resurrection.