The Life and Love of the Insect

by Jean-Henri Fabre

The Scorpion, clad in her young assembled to form a white muslin mantlet, is a spectacle worthy of attention. She remains motionless, with her tail curled on high. If I bring a rush of straw too near the family, she at once lifts her two claws in an angry attitude, rarely adopted in her own defence. The two fists are raised in a sparring posture, the nippers open wide, ready to thrust and parry. The tail is seldom brandished: to loosen it suddenly would give a shock to the spine and perhaps make a part of the burden fall to the ground. The bold, sudden, imposing menace of the fists suffices.

My curiosity takes no notice of it. I push off one of the little ones and place it facing its mother, at a finger’s breadth away. The mother does not seem to trouble about the accident: motionless she was, motionless she remains. Why excite herself about that slip? The fallen child will be quite able to manage for itself. It gesticulates, it moves about; and then, finding one of [[254]]the maternal claws within its reach, it clambers up pretty nimbly and joins the crowd of its brothers. It resumes its seat in the saddle, but without, by a long way, displaying the agility of the Lycosa’s sons, who are expert riders, versed in the art of vaulting on horseback.

The test is repeated on a larger scale. This time, I sweep a part of the load to the ground; the little ones are scattered, to no very great distance. There is a somewhat prolonged moment of hesitation. While the brats wander about, without quite knowing where to go, the mother at last becomes alarmed at the state of things. With her two arms—I am speaking of the chelæ—with her two arms joined in a semi-circle, she rakes and gathers the sand so as to bring the strayers to her. This is done awkwardly, clumsily, with no precautions against accidental crushing. The Hen, with a soft clucking call, makes the wandering chicks return to the pale; the Scorpion collects her family with a sweep of the rake. All are safe and sound nevertheless. As soon as they come in contact with the mother, they climb up and form themselves again into a dorsal group.

Strangers are admitted to this group, as well as the legitimate offspring. If, with the camel-hair broom, I dislodge a mother’s family, wholly or in part, and place it within reach of a second mother, herself carrying her family, the latter will collect the young ones by armfuls, as she would her own offspring, and very kindly allow the newcomers to mount upon her back. One would say that she adopts them, were the expression not too ambitious. There is no adoption. It is the same blindness as that of the Lycosa, who is incapable of distinguishing between her own family and the family of others, and welcomes all that swarms about her legs. [[255]]

I expected to come upon excursions similar to those of the Lycosa, whom it is not unusual to meet scouring the heath with her pack of children on her back. The Scorpion knows nothing of these diversions. Once she becomes a mother, for some time she does not leave her home, not even in the evening, at the hour when others sally forth to frolic. Barricaded in her cell, not troubling to eat, she watches over the upbringing of her young.

As a matter of fact, those frail creatures have a delicate test to undergo: they have, one might say, to be born a second time. They prepare for it by immobility and by an inward labour not unlike that which turns the larva into the perfect insect. In spite of their fairly correct appearance as Scorpions, the young ones have rather indistinct features, which look as though seen through a mist. One is inclined to credit them with a sort of child’s smock, which they must throw off in order to become slim and acquire a definite shape.

Eight days spent without moving, on the mother’s back, are necessary to this work. Then there takes place an excoriation which I hesitate to describe by the expression “casting of the skin,” so greatly does it differ from the true casting of the skin, undergone later at repeated intervals. For the latter, the skin splits over the thorax; and the animal emerges through this single fissure, leaving a dry cast garment behind it, similar in shape to the Scorpion that has just thrown it off. The empty mould retains the exact outline of the moulded animal.

But, this time, it is something different. I place a few young ones in course of excoriation on a sheet of glass. They are motionless, sorely tried, it seems, almost spent. The skin bursts, without special lines of cleavage; it tears at one and the same time in front, behind, at the [[256]]sides; the legs come out of their gaiters, the claws leave their gauntlets, the tail quits its scabbard. The cast skin falls in rags on every side at a time. It is a flaying without order and in tatters. When it is done, the flayed insects present the normal appearance of Scorpions. They have also acquired agility. Although still pale in tint, they are nimble, quick to set foot to earth in order to run and play near the mother. The most striking part of this progress is the brisk growth. The young of the Languedocian Scorpion measured nine millimetres in length; they now measure fourteen.[3] Those of the Black Scorpion have grown from four to six or seven millimetres.[4] The length increases by one half, which nearly trebles the volume.

Surprised at this sudden growth, one asks one’s self what the cause can be; for the little ones have taken no food. The weight has not increased: on the contrary, it has diminished; for we must remember that the skin has been cast. The volume grows, but not the bulk. It is therefore a distension up to a certain point and may be compared with that of inorganic bodies under the influence of heat. A secret change takes place, which groups the living molecules into a more spacious combination; and the volume increases without the addition of fresh materials. One who, possessed of a fine patience and suitably equipped, cared to follow the rapid changes of this architecture would, I think, reap a harvest of some value. I, in my penury, abandon the problem to others.

The remains of the excoriation are white strips, silky rags, which, so far from falling to the ground, attach themselves [[257]]to the back of the Scorpion, especially near the basal segments of the legs, and there tangle themselves into a soft carpet on which the lately-flayed insects rest. The steed now carries a saddle-cloth well-adapted to hold her restless riders in position. Whether these have to alight or to remount, the layer of tatters, now become a solid harness, affords supports for rapid evolutions.