The Life of the Scorpion

by Jean-Henri Fabre

In April, or at latest in May, the ascent is completed; all the little creatures are assembled on the topmost tips of the branches, in close-packed groups, side touching side, after the fashion of the Plant-lice. A sap-drinker and endowed with a beak that acts as a gimlet, the Dorthesia is, in fact, related to the Aphides, whose sedentary and social habits she shares; but, far from reminding us in appearance of the plump, naked vermin which the rose-tree and so many other plants have made familiar to us, she is clothed, and her costume is one of unusual elegance. [[296]]

The orange Terebinth-lice, imprisoned in galls, whether horn-shaped or rounded like apricots, attach to their hinder parts a long train of extreme delicacy, which the slightest touch reduces to dust. In the Dorthesiæ, on the other hand, we see a complete garment, a close-fitting coat of indefinite length, though fragile and breaking off in particles under the point of a needle, just as a brittle rind might do.

Nothing could be prettier than the cloak of this large Louse, either in shape or in colour. It is a uniform dead white, more pleasing to the eye than even the white of milk. The forepart of the garment is a jacket of curly knots arranged in four longitudinal rows between which other, smaller knots are distributed. The hinder part is a fringe of ten slats gradually increasing in width and spreading outwards, not unlike the teeth of a comb. The breast is covered by a shirt-front formed of symmetrical plates and pierced with six neatly-rounded holes, through which the brown legs emerge, quite naked and unconstrained. This shirt-front and the curly mantle on the back together form a sort of sleeveless woollen waistcoat [[297]]with easy-fitting armholes. In the same way the hood is pierced by holes to give free play to the rostrum and the antennæ. All the other parts are covered by the white cloak.

This is the winter costume; it covers the whole body but does not extend beyond it. Later, when the laying-season draws near, the garment grows longer, as though the insect, which in reality cannot undergo further change, were growing at a furious rate and trebling its length. Gracefully curved like the prow of a gondola, the new portion is furrowed above by wide parallel grooves; underneath it is finely streaked, almost smooth. The end is cut off square. The magnifying-glass here reveals a transverse button-hole plugged with fine cotton-wool.

The material of the garment is everywhere brittle, fusible and inflammable; when laid on paper it leaves a slightly translucent mark. From these qualities we judge it to be a sort of wax, similar to beeswax. In order to obtain it in some other form than that of tiny particles removed from the insect, I collect a handful of Dorthesiæ and subject them to the action of boiling water. The waxen coverings melt and dissolve into [[298]]an oily liquid which floats on the surface; the denuded insects sink to the bottom. On cooling, the thin floating layer sets into an amber-yellow sheet.

This colour causes us a certain surprise. We began with a substance whose whiteness rivalled that of milk; and now melting gives it a look of resin. This is a matter of molecular arrangement and nothing more. To impart a proper whiteness to the yellow wax as it comes from the hive, the wax-chandler melts it down and pours the melted substance into cold water, thereby reducing it to thin flakes which he afterwards exposes, on wattled screens, to the rays of the sun. Further meltings follow, with a further production of shell-like flakes and further exposure to the bright sunshine; and, little by little, the wax turns white by changing its molecular structure. In this art of bleaching how far our superior is the Dorthesia! Without treating the material by repeated meltings and prolonged exposures to the sun, she then and there transforms a yellow wax into one of incomparable whiteness. She obtains by her gentle methods a result [[299]]that eludes the violent procedures of the laboratory.

Like beeswax, the Dorthesia’s wax is not collected in the outer world: it is a first product, exuded through the surface of the body. No manipulation is required to induce it to form itself into curly knots, to fall into uniform streaks or graceful flutings. Merely in exuding from the pores of the skin, it automatically acquires the requisite form; like the fledgling’s plumage, its clothing grows correctly by the mere activities of the organism; the wearer of the dress has no need to improve upon it.

The tiny creature, when it issues from the egg, is perfectly naked, and brown in colour. Soon, before leaving the mother and settling on the bark of the spurge to draw its first sips, it becomes covered with thinly-scattered white specks, which form the first outline of the future jacket. By slow degrees these specks increase in number and are produced into curly knots, so much so that the youngster, at the moment of its emancipation, is clad like its elders.

The exudation of the wax is continuous; [[300]]the white tunic is constantly growing larger and nearer to perfection. Therefore the insect, if I cunningly strip it bare, ought to be capable of clothing itself anew. Experiment confirms my expectations. Destroying her garments with the point of a needle and brushing them off with a camel-hair pencil, I completely denude a mature Dorthesia. The persecuted Louse comes forth in her poor brown skin. I isolate her on a sprig of spurge. In two or three weeks’ time the coat has been remade; not so full as the first, but large enough and of the regulation cut. With the wax which would have added to the original garment the insect has sweated forth another.

What is the use of this backward prolongation which trebles the actual size of the body? Is it merely an adornment? It is much more than that.