[7] Sir William Herschel (1738–1822), the Hanoverian-English astronomer, invented the principle of “gauging” the skies which was subsequently applied to the Milky Way by his son, Sir John Frederick William Herschel (1792–1871).—Translator’s Note. [↑]
CHAPTER IV
THE TEREBINTH-LOUSE: THE MIGRATION
By the end of September the horn-shaped gall is full, almost as full as a keg of anchovies. There would not be room for them all were the Lice to form only one layer, side by side, with their suckers implanted. They lie in strata according to the length of their probe: uppermost are the big Lice, in the second layer the medium-sized and between their legs the small ones, all of them motionless, with their trunks at work. Above those engaged in drinking is the shifting horde, seeking a place at the refreshment bar. Eddies occur in the crowd: those at the top dive down, those underneath return to the surface; and this continual ebb and flow gives each one time for a little tippling.
In this rough and tumble the white waxen finery turns to flour, which fills up the interstices and makes of the whole a swarming conglomerate in which the metamorphosis is [[272]]effected. Here, without a moment’s quiet, the moult takes place and not a leg is out of joint: here, when there is no free space, wide wings are unfurled and not a wing is torn. To achieve transfiguration without a hitch in such a tumult the insect must be peculiarly favoured by fortune.
The pot-bellied orange Lice are now handsome, black, slender midges, provided with four wings. Their secluded life is over; the time has come for soaring in the open air. But how will they get out? The internees are quite incapable of making a breach in the ramparts: they have no tools. Well, what the prisoners cannot accomplish the fortress itself will do. When the population is ripe the gall is ripe too, so closely does the calendar of the bush synchronize with that of the insect.
The hems raise their upper folds a little; the spindles open like so many purses, each lined with pink satin; the auricles part their thick gnarled lips. The doors open of themselves for the impatient inmates, by the mere action of the sap. In the other galls, the globular and horn-shaped ones, the mechanism does not work so easily; the unclosing is [[273]]a violent affair. More and more distended day by day, the globes burst their sides in star-shaped rents, while the horns split open at the top.
The exodus is worth close observation. I choose a few of the horn-shaped galls whose cracked tips announces the coming rupture. I expose them to the sun, in my study, facing a window, at a distance of a few paces from the closed casements. In the intervening space I set up a thick branch of leafy terebinth. I reckon upon this bait to attract the flying Lice, at least as a resting-spot. Next morning one of the horns opens, and by midday, in radiant sunlight, in calm, hot weather, the winged Lice are emerging.
They come forth in small companies, without hurrying. It is a quiet, gently-flowing stream. They are dusted over with a waxy flour, all that remains of the sometime powder-puffs. When barely on the threshold of the cranny, they spread their wings and are off, shedding a faint trail of dust from their shoulders, shaken by the vibrations of their wings. With an undulating flight they all make straight for the window, where the light is brighter than elsewhere. [[274]]They dash against the panes and slip down upon the cross-bars. There, bathed in the sunlight, without attempting to go further afield, they remain, collecting in a drift.