The Life of the Caterpillar

by Jean-Henri Fabre

From the centre of the hairy coronet a long ovipositor stands out, consisting of two parts, one stiff, forming the base of the implement, the other soft and flexible, sheathed in the first just as a telescope fits in its tube. The laying mother bends herself into a hook, grips the lower end of her case with her six feet and drives her probe into the back-window, a window which serves manifold purposes, allowing of the consummation of the clandestine marriage, the emergence of the fertilized bride, the installation of the eggs and, lastly, the exodus of the young family.

There, at the free end of her case, the mother remains for a long time, bowed and motionless. What can she be doing in this contemplative attitude? She is lodging her [[197]]eggs in the house which she has just left; she is bequeathing the maternal cottage to her heirs. Some thirty hours pass and the ovipositor is at last withdrawn. The laying is finished.

A little wadding, supplied by the coronet on the hind-quarters, closes the door and allays the dangers of invasion. The fond mother makes a barricade for her brood of the sole ornament which, in her extreme indigence, she possesses. Better still, she makes a rampart of her body. Bracing herself convulsively on the threshold of her home, she dies there, dries up there, devoted to her family even after death. It needs an accident, a breath of air, to make her fall from her post.

Let us now open the case. It contains the chrysalid wrapper, intact except for the front breach through which the Psyche emerged. The male, because of his wings and his plumes, very cumbersome articles when he is about to make his way through the narrow pass, takes advantage of his chrysalis state to make a start for the door and come out half-way. Then, bursting his amber tunic, the delicate Moth finds an open space, where [[198]]flight is possible, right in front of him. The mother, unprovided with wings and plumes, is not compelled to observe any such precautions. Her cylindrical form, bare and differing but little from that of the caterpillar, allows her to crawl, to slip into the narrow passage and to come forth without obstacle. Her cast chrysalid skin is, therefore, left right at the back of the case, well covered by the thatched roof.

And this is an act of prudence marked by exquisite tenderness. The eggs, in fact, are packed in the barrel, in the parchmentlike wallet formed by the slough. The mother has thrust her telescopic ovipositor to the bottom of that receptacle and has methodically gone on laying until it is full. Not satisfied with bequeathing her home and her velvet coronet to her offspring, as a last sacrifice she leaves them her skin.

With a view to observing at my ease the events which are soon to happen, I extract one of these chrysalid bags, stuffed with eggs, from its faggot and place it by itself, beside its case, in a glass tube. I have not long to wait. In the first week of July, I find myself all of a sudden in possession of a large family. [[199]]The quickness of the hatching balked my watchfulness. The new-born caterpillars, about forty in number, have already had time to garb themselves.

They wear a Persian head-dress, a mage’s tiara in dazzling white plush. Or, to abandon high-flown language, let us say a cotton night-cap without a tassel; only the cap does not stand up from the head: it covers the hind-quarters. Great animation reigns in the tube, which is a spacious residence for such vermin. They roam about gaily, with their caps sticking up almost perpendicular to the floor. With a tiara like that and things to eat, life must be sweet indeed.

But what do they eat? I try a little of everything that grows on the bare stone and the gnarled old trees. Nothing is welcomed. More eager to dress than to feed themselves, the Psyches scorn what I set before them. My ignorance as an insect-breeder will not matter, provided that I succeed in seeing with what materials and in what manner the first outlines of the cap are woven.

I may fairly hope to achieve this ambition, as the chrysalid bag is far from having exhausted its contents. I find in it, teeming [[200]]amid the rumpled wrapper of the eggs, an additional family as numerous as the swarm that is already out. The total laying must therefore amount to five or six dozen. I transfer to another receptacle the precocious band which is already dressed and keep only the naked laggards in the tube. They have bright red heads, with the rest of their bodies dirty white; and they measure hardly a twenty-fifth of an inch in length.

My patience is not long put to the test. Next day, little by little, singly or in groups, the belated grubs quit the chrysalid bag. They come out without breaking the frail wallet, through the front breach made by the liberation of the mother. Not one of them utilizes it as a dress-material, though it has the delicacy and amber colouring of an onion-skin; nor do any of them make use of a fine quilting which lines the inside of the bag and forms an exquisitely soft bed for the eggs. This down, whose origin we shall have to investigate presently, ought, one would say, to make an excellent blanket for these chilly ones, impatient to cover themselves up. Not a single one uses it; there would not be enough to go round. [[201]]