The Life of the Caterpillar

by Jean-Henri Fabre

Few as yet, rather short and placed anyhow, sometimes lengthways and sometimes across, these untidy first logs of the roof will not interfere with the final regularity of the building: they are destined to disappear and will be pushed back and be driven out at last as the sack grows in front.

Later on, when the pieces are longer and better-chosen, they are all carefully laid longitudinally. The placing of a straw is done with surprising quickness and dexterity. If the log which he has found suits him, the caterpillar takes it between his legs and turns it round and round. Gripping it with his mandibles by one end, as a rule he removes a few morsels from this part and immediately fixes them to the neck of the sack. His object [[240]]in laying bare the raw and rough surfaces, to which the silk will stick better, may be to obtain a firmer hold. Even so the plumber gives a touch of the file at the point that is to be soldered.

Then, by sheer strength of jaw, the caterpillar lifts his beam, brandishes it in the air and, with a quick movement of his rump, lays it on his back. The spinneret at once sets to work on the end caught. And the thing is done: without any groping about or correcting, the log is added to the others, in the direction required.

The fine days of autumn are spent in toil of this kind, performed leisurely and intermittently, when the stomach is full. By the time that the cold weather arrives, the house is ready. When the air is once more warm, the Psyche resumes his walks abroad: he roams along the paths, strolls over the friendly greensward, takes a few mouthfuls and then, when the hour has come, prepares for his transformation by hanging from the wall.

These springtime wanderings, long after the case is completely finished, made me want to know if the caterpillar would be capable of repeating his sack-weaving and roof-building [[241]]operations. I take him out of his case and place him, stark naked, on a bed of fine, dry sand. I give him as materials to work with some old stalks of Nîmes dandelion, cut up into sticks of the same length as the pieces that make the case.

The evicted insect disappears under the heap of ligneous straws and hurriedly starts spinning, taking as pegs for its cords anything that its lips encounter: the bed of sand underfoot, the canopy of twigs overhead. So doing, it binds together, in extricable confusion, all the pieces touched by the spinneret, long and short, light and heavy, at random. In the centre of this tangled scaffolding, a work is pursued of a quite different nature from that of hut-building. The caterpillar weaves and does nothing else, not even attempting to assemble into a proper roofing the materials of which he is able to dispose.

The Psyche owning a perfect case, when he resumes his activity with the fine weather, scorns his old trade as an assembler of logs, a trade practised so zealously during the previous summer. Now that his stomach is satisfied and his silk-glands distended, he devotes his spare time solely to improving the quilting [[242]]of his case. The silky felt of the interior is never thick or soft enough to please him. The thicker and softer it is, the better for his own comfort during the process of transformation and for the safety of his family afterwards.

Well, my knavish tricks have now robbed him of everything. Does he perceive the disaster? Though the silk and timber at his disposal permit, does he dream of rebuilding the shelter, so essential first to his chilly back and secondly to his family, who will cut it up to make their first home? Not a bit of it. He slips under the mass of twigs where I let it fall and there begins to work exactly as he would have done under normal conditions.

This shapeless roof and this sand on which the jumble of rafters are lying now represent to the Psyche the walls of the regulation home; and, without in any way modifying his labours to meet the exigencies of the moment, the caterpillar upholsters the surfaces within his reach with the same zest that he would have displayed in adding new layers to the quilted lining which has disappeared. Instead of being pasted on the proper wall, the present hangings come in contact with the rough surface of the sand and the hopeless tangle [[243]]of the straws; and the spinner takes no notice.

The house is worse than ruined: it no longer exists. No matter: the caterpillar continues his actual work; he loses sight of the real and upholsters the imaginary.[3] And yet everything ought to apprise him of the absence of any roofing. The sack with which he has managed to cover himself, very skilfully for that matter, is lamentably flabby. It sags and rumples at every movement of the insect’s body. Moreover, it is made heavy with sand and bristles with spikes in every direction, which catch in the dust of the road and make all progress impossible. Thus anchored to the ground, the caterpillar wastes his strength in efforts to shift his position. It takes him hours to make a start and to move his cumbrous dwelling a fraction of an inch.