I instal a few dozen emigrants under bell-covers. On what shall I feed these future huntresses? On game, obviously. But what game? To these miniature creatures I can only offer atoms. I serve them up a rose-branch covered with Green Fly. The plump Aphis, a tender morsel suited to my feeble guests, is utterly scorned. Not one of the captives touches it.
I try them with Midges, the smallest that chance flings into my net as it sweeps the grass, and meet with the same obstinate refusal. I offer them pieces of Fly, hung here and there on the gauze of the cover. None accepts my quarters of venison. Perhaps the Locust will tempt them, the Locust on [[180]]whom the adult Mantis dotes? A prolonged and minute search places me in possession of what I want. This time the bill of fare will consist of a few recently hatched Acridians. Young as they are, they have already reached the size of my charges. Will the little Mantes fancy these? They do not fancy them: at the sight of their tiny prey they run away dismayed.
Then what do you want? What other game do you find on your native brushwood? I can see nothing. Can you have some special infants’ food, vegetarian perhaps? Let us even try the improbable. The very tenderest bit of the heart of a lettuce is declined. So are the different sorts of grass which I tax my ingenuity in varying; so are the drops of honey which I place on spikes of lavender. All my endeavours come to nothing; and my captives die of inanition.
My failure has its lessons. It seems to point to a transition diet which I have not been able to discover. Long ago, the larvæ of the Oil-beetles gave me a great deal of trouble, before I knew that they want as their first food the egg of the Bee whose store of honey they will afterwards consume. Perhaps the young Mantes also in the beginning [[181]]demand a special pap, something more in keeping with their frailty. Despite its resolute air, I do not quite see the feeble little creature hunting. The game, whatever it be, kicks out, when attacked, frisks about, defends itself; and the assailant is not yet in a condition to ward off even the flap of a Midge’s wing. Then what does it feed on? I should not be surprised if there were interesting facts to be picked up in this baby-food question.
These fastidious ones, so difficult to provide with nourishment, meet with even more pitiful deaths than hunger. When only just born, they fall a prey to the Ant, the Lizard and other ravagers who lie in wait, patiently, for the exquisite provender to hatch. The egg itself is not respected. An infinitesimal perforator inserts her own eggs in the nest through the barrier of solidified foam, thus settling her offspring, which, maturing earlier, nips the Mantis’ family in the bud. How many are called and how few are chosen! There were a thousand of them perhaps, sprung from one mother who was capable of giving birth to three broods. One couple alone escapes extermination, one alone keeps up the breed, seeing that the number remains [[182]]more or less the same from year to year.
Here a serious question arises. Can the Mantis have acquired her present fecundity by degrees? Can she, as the ravages of the Ant and others reduced her progeny, have increased the output of her ovaries so as to make up for excessive destruction by excessive production? Could the enormous brood of to-day be due to the wastage of former days? So think some, who are ready, without convincing proofs, to see in animals even more profound changes brought about by circumstances.
In front of my window, on the sloping margin of the pond, stands a magnificent cherry-tree. It came there by accident, a sturdy wilding, disregarded by my predecessors and to-day respected far more for its spreading branches than for its fruit, which is of very indifferent quality. In April it forms a splendid white-satin dome. Its blossoms are as snow; their fallen petals carpet the ground. Soon the red cherries appear in profusion. O my beautiful tree, how lavish you are and what a number of baskets you will fill!
And for this reason what revelry up [[183]]above! The Sparrow is the first to hear of the ripe cherries and comes trooping, morning and evening, to pilfer and squall; he informs his friends in the neighbourhood, the Greenfinch and the Warbler, who hasten up and banquet for weeks on end. Butterflies flit from one nibbled cherry to another, taking delicious sips at each. Rose-chafers bite great mouthfuls out of the fruit, then fall asleep sated. Wasps and Hornets burst open the sweet caskets; and the Gnats follow to get drunk in their wake. A plump maggot, settled in the very centre of the pulp, blissfully feasts upon its juicy dwelling-house and waxes big and fat. It will rise from table to change into a comely Fly.
On the ground there are others at the banquet. A host of footpads is battening on the fallen cherries. At night, the Field-mice come gathering the stones stripped by the Wood-lice, Earwigs, Ants and Slugs; they hoard them in their burrows. During the long winter they will make holes in them to extract and nibble the kernels. A numberless throng lives upon the generous cherry-tree.
What would the tree require to provide a successor one day and maintain its species [[184]]in a state of harmonious and well-balanced prosperity? A single seed would be enough; and every year it gives forth bushels and bushels. Tell me why, please.