[5] Charles Robert Darwin (1809–1882), the author of The Origin of Species, had the highest opinion of Fabre and spoke of him as “that incomparable observer.” Fabre, on the other hand, had no faith whatever in Darwinism, nor was he greatly struck by the views and the suggestions for experiments with which Darwin favoured him from time to time. Cf. The Mason-bees: chaps. iv. and v.—Translator’s Note. [↑]
CHAPTER VI
THE SWALLOW AND THE SPARROW
The Pelopæus sets us a second problem. She frequents our homes, seeks the warmth of our fireplaces. A nest like hers, built of soft mud, which lets in the water, which would be dismantled by a shower and utterly destroyed by prolonged damp, must have a dry shelter; and this can be nowhere better found than in our dwelling-houses. Her susceptibility to cold makes warmth a necessity. Perhaps she is a foreigner not yet fully acclimatized, an emigrant from the shores of Africa, who, after coming from the land of dates to the land of olives, finds the sunshine in the latter insufficient and substitutes for the climate beloved of her race the artificial climate of the fireside. This would explain her habits, so unlike those of the other Wasps, all of whom shun the too-close proximity of man.
But through what stages did she pass before becoming our guest? Where did she lodge before quarters built by human industry existed, where did she shelter her [[134]]brood of grubs before chimneys were thought of? When, on the hills near by, abounding in traces of their sojourn, the aborigines of Sérignan were hewing weapons out of flint, scraping Goat-skins into raiment and building huts of mud and branches, did the Pelopæus already frequent their cabins? Did she build in some bulging pot, shaped with the thumb out of half-baked black clay, and by this choice teach her latter-day descendants to seek out the peasant’s gourd on the chimneypiece? Did she think of building in the folds of the garments, the spoils of the Wolf and the Bear, hanging from some set of antlers, the hat-rack of the period, thus trying her hand at a kind of annexation that was to take her at a later date to window-curtains and the labourer’s smock? Did she prefer to fix her nest on the rough wall of branches and clay, near the conical orifice which let out the smoke from the primitive fire laid between four stones in the centre of the hut? Though not equal to our present chimneys, it will have served at a pinch.
What progress she has made, this Pelopæus, what a contrast between that miserable beginning and her modern premises, if she is really, in my district, a contemporary [[135]]of the aborigines! She too must have profited greatly by civilization: she has managed to turn man’s increasing comfort into her own. When the dwelling with a roof, rafters and ceiling was planned and the chimney with side-walls and a flue invented, the chilly creature said to herself:
“How pleasant this is! Let us pitch our tent here.”
And, notwithstanding the novelty of her surroundings, she hastened to take possession.
Let us go back farther still. Before huts existed, before the niche in the rock, before man himself, the last to make his entrance on the world’s stage, where did the Pelopæus build? The question is not devoid of interest, as we shall shortly see. Besides, it does not stand alone. Where did the Window-swallow and the Chimney-swallow make their nests before there were windows and chimneys to build in? What retreat did the Sparrow select for his family before there were roofs with tiles and walls with holes to them?