With his normal case, in which all the beams are imbricated from front to back with scientific precision, he gets along very nimbly. [[244]]His collection of logs, all fixed in front and all free at the back, forms a boat-shaped sledge which slips and glides through obstacles without difficulty. But, though progress be easy, retreat is impracticable, for each piece of the framework causes the thing to stop, owing to its free end.
Well, the sack of my victim is covered with laths pointing this way and that, just in the position in which they happened to be caught by the spinneret, as it fastened its threads here and there, indiscriminately. The bits in front are so many spurs which dig into the sand and neutralize all efforts to advance; the bits at the side are rakes whose resistance cannot be overcome. In such conditions, the insect is bound to be stranded and to perish on the spot.
If I were advising the caterpillar, I should say:
“Go back to the art in which you excel; arrange your bundle neatly; point the cumbrous pieces lengthwise, in an orderly fashion; do something to your sack, which hangs too loosely; give it the necessary stiffness with a few props to act as a busk; do now, in your distress, what you knew so well how to do before; [[245]]summon up your old carpentering-talents and you will be saved.”
Useless advice! The time for carpentry is over. The hour has come for upholstering; and he upholsters obstinately, padding a house which no longer exists. He will perish miserably, cut up by the Ants, as the result of his too-rigid instinct.
Many other instances have already told us as much. Like running water which does not climb slopes and which does not flow back to its source, the insect never retraces its actions. What is done is done and cannot be recommenced. The Psyche, but now a clever carpenter, will die for want of knowing how to fix a beam. [[246]]
[1] A fictitious character, a sort of dolt, created by some wit in a French regiment quartered in Brabant about the year 1792. Cadet Roussel’s entertaining exploits were perpetuated in a contemporary ballad.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[2] Cf. Chapter XI. of the present volume.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
[3] For other instances of what Fabre calls “the insect’s mental incapacity in the presence of the accidental” I would refer the reader to one essay inter alia, entitled, Some Reflections upon Insect Psychology, which forms chap. vii. of The Mason-bees.—Translator’s Note. [↑]