In the summer, I proclaim myself a buyer of caterpillars at a sou apiece. The offer appeals to some urchins in the neighbourhood, my usual purveyors. On Thursdays, emancipated from the horrors of parsing,[1] they scour the fields, find the fat caterpillar from time to time and bring him to me clinging to the end of a stick. They dare not touch him, poor mites; they are staggered at my audacity when I take him in my fingers as they might take the familiar Silk-worm.
Reared on almond-tree branches, my menagerie in a few days supplies me with magnificent cocoons. In the winter, assiduous searches at the foot of the fostering tree complete my collection. Friends interested in my enquiries come to my assistance. In short, by dint of trouble, much running about, commercial bargains and not a few scratches from brambles, I am the possessor of an assortment of cocoons, of which twelve, bulkier and heavier than the others, tell me that they belong to females.
A disappointment awaits me, for May arrives, a fickle month which brings to naught [[265]]my preparations, the cause of so much anxiety. We have winter back again. The mistral howls, tears the budding leaves from the plane-trees and strews the ground with them. It is as cold as in December. We have to light the fires again at night and resume the thick clothes which we were beginning to leave off.
My Moths are sorely tried. They hatch late and are torpid. Around my wire cages, in which the females wait, one to-day, another to-morrow, according to the order of their birth, few males or none come from the outside. And yet there are some close at hand, for the plumed gallants resulting from my harvest were placed out in the garden as soon as they were hatched and recognized. Whether near neighbours or strangers from afar, very few arrive; and these are only half-hearted. They enter for a moment, then disappear and do not return. The lovers have grown cold.
It is also possible that the low temperature is unfavourable to the tell-tale effluvia, which might well be enhanced by the warmth and decreased by the cold, as happens with scents. My year is lost. Oh, what laborious work is [[266]]this experimenting at the mercy of the sudden changes and deceptions of a short season!
I begin all over again, for the third time. I rear caterpillars, I scour the country in search of cocoons. When May returns, I am suitably provided. The weather is fine and responds to my hopes. I once more see the incursions which had struck me so powerfully at the beginning, at the time of the historic invasion which first led to my researches.
Nightly the visitors turn up, in squads of twelve, twenty or more. The female, a lusty, big-bellied matron, clings firmly to the trellis-work of the cage. She makes no movement, gives not so much as a flutter of the wings, seems indifferent to what is going on. Nor is there any odour, so far as the most sensitive nostrils in the household can judge, nor any rustle perceptible to the most delicate hearing among my family, all of whom are called in to bear evidence. In motionless contemplation she waits.
The others, in twos or threes or more, flop down upon the dome of the cage, run about it briskly in every direction, lash it with the tips of their wings in continual movement. There are no affrays between rivals. With [[267]]not a sign of jealousy in regard to the other suitors, each does his utmost to enter the enclosure. Tiring of their vain attempts, they fly away and join the whirling throng of dancers. Some, giving up all hope, escape through the open window; fresh arrivals take their places; and, on the top of the cage, until ten o’clock in the evening, attempts to approach are incessantly renewed, soon to be abandoned and as soon resumed.
Every evening the cage is moved to a different place. I put it on the north side and the south, on the ground-floor and the first floor, in the right wing and fifty yards away in the left, in the open air or hidden in a distant room. All these sudden displacements, contrived if possible to put the seekers off the scent, do not trouble the Moths in the least. I waste my time and ingenuity in trying to deceive them.
Recollection of places plays no part here. Yesterday, for instance, the female was installed in a certain room. The feathered males came fluttering thither for a couple of hours; several even spent the night there. Next day, at sunset, when I move the cage, all are out of doors. Ephemeral though they be, [[268]]the newest comers are ready to repeat their nocturnal expeditions a second time and a third. Where will they go first, these veterans of a day?