The Life of the Caterpillar

by Jean-Henri Fabre

One afternoon, trying to discover whether sight plays any part in the search, once that the Moths have entered the room, I place the female in a glass bell-jar and give her a little oak-branch, with withered leaves, as a perch. The apparatus is put on a table, opposite the open window. On entering, the Moths cannot fail to see the prisoner, standing as she does where they are bound to pass. The pan with its layer of sand, in which the female spent the previous night and the morning under a wire-gauze cover, is in my way. I put it, without premeditation, on the floor at the other end of the room, in a corner which is only dimly lighted. It is seven yards from the window.

The result of these preparations upsets all my ideas. Of the Moths arriving, none stops at the glass bell, where the female is plainly visible, in the full light. They pass by with [[291]]utter indifference. Not a glance in her direction, not an enquiry. They all fly right to the far end of the room, to the dusky corner where I placed the tray and the cage. They alight on the trellised top and explore it at length, flapping their wings and hustling one another a little. All the afternoon, until sunset, they dance around the deserted dome the same saraband to which the actual presence of the female would give rise. At last they fly away, but not all of them. There are persistent ones who refuse to go, rooted to the spot by some magic attraction.

A strange result indeed: my Moths hasten to where there is nothing, take their stand there and will not be dissuaded by the repeated warnings of their eyes; they pass without stopping for a moment by the bell-glass in which the female cannot fail to be perceived by one or other of those coming and going. Befooled by a lure, they pay no attention to the real thing.

What is it that deceives them? The whole of the night before and all this morning, the female has sojourned under the wire-gauze cover, either hanging to the trellis-work, or resting on the sand in the pan. Whatever [[292]]she touched, above all with her fat belly apparently, has become impregnated, as the result of long contact, with certain emanations. There you have her bait, her love-philtre; there you have what revolutionizes the world of Monks. The sand retains it for a time and spreads its effluvia around.

It is smell therefore that guides the Moths, that gives them information at a distance. Dominated by the sense of smell, they take no notice of what their eyes tell them; they pass by the glass prison in which their lady-love is now interned; they go to the wires, to the sand, on which the magic cruets have shed their contents; they race to the wilderness where naught remains of the witch but the scented evidence of her sojourn.

The irresistible philtre takes a certain time to elaborate. I picture it as an exhalation which is gradually given off and saturates everything that touches the fat, motionless creature. When the glass bell stands directly on the table or, better still, on a square of glass, the communication between the interior and the outer air is insufficient; and the males, perceiving nothing by the sense of smell, keep away, however long the experiment be continued. [[293]]At the actual moment, I cannot substantiate this non-transmission through a screen, for, even if I establish ample communication, if I separate the bell from its support by means of three wedges, the Moths do not come at first, however many there may be in the room. But wait for half an hour, more or less: the alembic of feminine flavours begins its distilling and the rush of visitors takes place as usual.

Now that I possess these data, this unexpected light on the subject, I am at liberty to vary my experiments, all of which lead to the same conclusion. In the morning, I establish the female under a wire-gauze cover. Her perch is a little oak-twig similar to the last. Here, motionless, as though dead, she remains for long hours, buried in the tuft of leaves that is to be impregnated with her emanations. When visiting-time approaches, I withdraw the twig, perfectly saturated, and lay it on a chair, near the open window. On the other hand, I leave the female under her cover, well in view on the table, in the middle of the room.

The Moths arrive, first one, then two and three, soon five and six. They come in, go [[294]]out, come in again, fly up and down, go to and fro, keeping all the time to the neighbourhood of the chair with its oak-branch. Not one makes for the big table, a few paces farther into the room, where the female is waiting for them under the trellised dome. They are hesitating, that is clear; they are seeking.

At last they find. And what do they find? The very twig which in the morning had served the pot-bellied matron as a bed. With wings swiftly fluttering, they alight upon the branch; they explore it above and below, probe it, lift it and move it, until at last the little bit of foliage drops on the floor. The probing between the leaves continues none the less. Under the buffeting of the wings and the clawing of the feet, the stick is now running along the ground, like a scrap of paper pawed by a kitten.

While the twig is moving away with its band of explorers, two new arrivals come upon the scene. On their way, they have to pass the chair, which for a brief spell bore the leafy stick. They stop at it and eagerly investigate the very spot which but now was covered by the branch. And yet, in their case as in that of the others, the real object of their [[295]]desires is close by them, under a wire gauze which I have omitted to veil. No one notices it. On the floor, the Monks continue to hustle the mattress on which the female lay in the morning; on the chair, they still fumble at the spot where this bedding was first placed. The sun goes down; the time comes to depart. Besides, the effluvia of passion are growing fainter, are dispersing. The visitors go away without more ado. Good-bye till to-morrow.