The Life and Love of the Insect

by Jean-Henri Fabre

The worm is born in a little box surmounting the nourishing pile, but not communicating with it. The budding grub must, therefore, at the opportune moment, itself pierce the covering of the pot of preserves. As a [[107]]matter of fact, later, when the worm is on the sausage-meat, we find the floor perforated with a hole just large enough for it to pass through.

Wrapped all round in a thick casing of pottery, the meat keeps fresh as long as is required by the duration of the hatching-process, a detail which I have not ascertained; in its cell, which is also of clay, the egg lies safe. Capital: so far, all is well. Phanæus Milo is thoroughly acquainted with the mysteries of fortification and the danger of victuals evaporating too soon. There remain the breathing requirements of the germ.

To satisfy these, the insect has been equally well-inspired. The neck of the calabash is pierced, in the direction of its axis, with a tiny channel which would admit at most the thinnest of straws. Inside, this conduit opens at the top of the dome of the hatching-chamber; outside, at the tip of the nipple, it spreads into a wide mouth-piece. This is the ventilating-shaft, protected against intruders by its extreme narrowness and by grains of dust which obstruct it a little, without stopping it up. It is simply marvellous, I said. Was I wrong? If a construction of this sort is a fortuitous result, we must admit that blind chance is gifted with extraordinary foresight.

How does the awkward insect manage to carry so delicate and complex a piece of building through? Exploring the pampas as I do through the eyes of an intermediary, my only guide in this question is the structure of the work, a structure whence we can deduct the workman’s methods without going far wrong. I therefore imagine the labour to proceed like this: a small carcass is found, the oozing of which has softened the underlying loam. The insect collects more or less of this loam, [[108]]according to the richness of the vein. There are no precise limits here. If the plastic material abound, the collector is lavish with it and the provision-box becomes all the more solid. Then enormous calabashes are obtained, exceeding a hen’s egg in volume and formed of an outer wall a couple of centimetres thick.[4] But a mass of this description is beyond the strength of the modeller, is badly handled and betrays, in its outline, the clumsiness of an over-difficult task. If the material be rare, the insect confines its harvesting to what is strictly necessary; and then, freer in its movements, it obtains a magnificently regular gourd.

Fig. 10.—Work of Phanæus Milo: the largest of the gourds observed (natural size).

The loam is probably first kneaded into a ball and then scooped out into a large and very thick cup, by means of the pressure of the fore-legs and the work of the shield. [[109]]Even thus do the Copris and the Sacred Beetle act when preparing, on the top of their round ball, the bowl in which the egg will be laid before the final manipulation of the ovoid or pear.

In this first business, Phanæus is simply a potter. So long as it be plastic, any clay serves his turn, however meagrely it be saturated with the juices emanating from the carcass.

He now becomes a pork-butcher. With his toothed knife, he carves, he saws some tiny shreds from the rotten animal; he tears off, cuts away what he deems best suited to the grub’s entertainment. He collects all these fragments and mixes them with choice loam in the spots where the sanies abounds. The whole, cunningly kneaded and softened, becomes a ball obtained on the spot, without any rolling process, in the same way as the globe of the other pill-manufacturers. Let us add that this ball, a ration calculated by the needs of the grub, is very nearly constant in size, whatever the thickness of the final calabash. The sausage-meat is now ready. It is set in place in the wide-open clay bowl. Loosely packed, without compression, the food will remain free, will not stick to its wrapper.

Next, the potter’s work is renewed. The insect presses the thick lips of the clayey cup, rolls them out and applies them to the forcemeat preparation, which is eventually contained by a thin partition at the top and by a thick layer every elsewhere. A large circular pad is left on the top partition, which is slender in view of the weakness of the grub that is to perforate it later, when making for the provisions. Manipulated in its turn, this pad is converted into a hemispherical hollow, in which the egg is forthwith laid. [[110]]