Could the insect, with its exceptionally delicate organization, escape this kind of impression? It is unbelievable. The insect, more than any other creature, should be an animated meteorological instrument, as truthful in its forecasts, if we knew how to read them, as the lifeless instruments of our observatories, with their mercury and their catgut. All, in different degrees, possess a general impressionability analogous to our own and exercised without the aid of specific organs. Some, better-gifted because of their mode of life, might well be furnished with special meteorological apparatus.
The Pine Processionary seems to belong to this number. In his second costume, when the segments bear on their dorsal faces an elegant red mosaic, he differs apparently from other caterpillars only by a more delicate general impressionability, unless this mosaic be endowed with aptitudes unknown elsewhere. If the nocturnal spinner is still none too generously equipped, it must be remembered that the season which he passes in this condition [[110]]is nearly always clement. The really formidable nights hardly set in before January. But then, as a safeguard in his peregrinations, the Pine Processionary cleaves his back with a series of mouths which yawn open to sample the air from time to time and to give a warning of the sudden storm.
Until further evidence is forthcoming, therefore, the dorsal slits are, to my mind, meteorological instruments, barometers influenced by the main fluctuations of the atmosphere. To go beyond suspicions, though these are well based, is for me impossible. I lack the equipment necessary to delve more deeply into the subject. But I have given a hint. It is for those who are better favoured in the matter of resources to find the final solution of this interesting problem. [[111]]
[1] A large carnivorous Beetle.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[2] The highest mountain in the neighbourhood of Sérignan. Cf. The Hunting Wasps, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. xi.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[3] Geotrupes stercorarius, a large Dung-beetle. Cf. The Life and Love of the Insect, by J. Henri Fabre, translated by Alexander Teixeira de Mattos: chap. ix.—Translator’s Note. [↑]