The Life of the Grasshopper

by Jean-Henri Fabre

The fairy-tales tell us of a grain of hemp-seed that contained the underlinen of a princess. Here is a grain that is even more astonishing. The one in the story took years and years to sprout and multiply and at last to yield the quantity of hemp required for the trousseau; the Locust’s supplies a sumptuous set of sails in a short space of time.

Slowly the proud crest, standing erect in four straight blades, acquires consistency and colour. The latter turns the requisite shade on the following day. For the first time the wings fold like a fan and lie in their places; the wing-cases lower their outer edge and form a gutter which falls over the sides. The transformation is finished. All that remains for the big Locust to do is to harden his tissues still further and to darken the grey of his costume while revelling in the sun. Let us leave him to enjoy himself and retrace our steps a little. [[417]]

The four stumps, which issued from their sheaths shortly after the corselet split its keel down the middle, contain, as we have seen, the wings and wing-cases, with their network of nervures. This network, if not perfect, has at least the general plan of its numberless details mapped out. To unfurl these poor bundles and convert them into generous sails, it is enough that the organism, acting in this case like a forcing-pump, should shoot a stream of humours, which have been kept in reserve for this moment, the hardest of all, into the little channels already prepared for their reception. With the channel marked out in advance, a slight injection is sufficient to explain the rapid spread.

But what were the four strips of gauze while still contained in their sheaths? Are the wings spatules and the three-cornered pinions of the larva moulds whose creases, corners and sinuosities shape their contents in their own image and weave the tissues of the future wing and wing-case? If we had to do with a real instance of moulding, our brains could call a halt. We should say to ourselves that it was quite simple for the thing moulded to correspond with the shape [[418]]of the mould. But our halt would be short-lived, for the mould in its turn would want explaining: we should have to seek for a solution of its infinite intricacies. Let us not go so far back; we should be utterly in the dark. Let us rather keep to facts that can be observed.

I examine through the magnifying-glass a pinion of a larva ripe for transformation. I see a bundle of fairly thick nervures radiating fanwise. Other nervures, paler and finer, are set in the intermediate spaces. Lastly, the fabric is completed by a number of very short transversal lines, more delicate still and chevron-shaped.

This, no doubt, gives a rough outline of the future wing-case; but how different from the mature structure! The arrangement of the radiating nervures, the skeleton of the edifice, is not at all the same; the network formed by the transversal veins in no way suggests the complicated pattern which we shall see later. The rudimentary is about to be succeeded by the infinitely complex, the crude by the exquisitely perfect. The same remark applies to the wing-spatule and its outcome, the final wing.

It is quite evident, when we have the preparatory [[419]]and the ultimate stage before our eyes at the same time: the larva’s pinion is not merely a mould which elaborates the material in its own image and shapes the wing-case upon the model of its hollow. No, the membrane which we are expecting is not yet inside in the form of a bundle which, when unfurled, will astonish us with the size and the extreme complexity of its texture. Or, to be accurate, it is there, but in a potential state. Before becoming a real thing, it is a virtual thing, which is nothing as yet, but which is capable of becoming something. It is there just as much as the oak is inside its acorn.

A fine, transparent rim binds the free edge both of the embryo wing and the embryo wing-case. Under a powerful lens we can see a few uncertain outlines of the future lacework. This might well be the factory in which life intends to set its materials going. There is nothing else visible, nothing to suggest the prodigious network whose every mesh will shortly have its form and place determined for it with geometrical precision.

There must therefore be something better and greater than a mould to make the organizable [[420]]matter shape itself into a sheet of gauze and describe the inextricable labyrinth of the nervation. There is a primary plan, an ideal pattern which assigns to each atom its precise place. Before the matter begins to move, the configuration is already virtually traced, the courses of the plastic currents are already marked out. The stones of our buildings are arranged in accordance with the architect’s considered plan; they form an ideal assemblage before existing as a real assemblage. Similarly, a Locust’s wing, that sumptuous piece of lace emerging from a miserable sheath, speaks to us of another Architect, the Author of the plans which life must follow in its labours.

The genesis of living creatures offers to our contemplation, in an infinity of ways, marvels far greater than those of the Acridian; but generally they pass unperceived, overshadowed as they are by the veil of time. The lapse of years, with its slow mysteries, robs us of the most astonishing spectacles, unless our minds be endowed with a stubborn patience. Here, by exception, things take place with a swiftness that arrests even a wavering attention.