There is not space in our museums for the proper display of the prodigious, the unbounded variety of decoration with which Nature has, mother-like, sought to glorify the hymeneal of the insect and to emparadise its nuptials. A distinguished amateur having had the patience to show me in due succession genus after genus, species after species, the whole of his immense collection, I was astounded—in truth, I was stupefied—almost terrified by the inexhaustible energy—I was going to say fury—of invention which Nature displayed. I was overcome—I closed my eyes, and begged for a truce; my brain was dizzied and blinded, and became confused. But she, she would not let me go; she inundated and overwhelmed me with beautiful beings, with fantastic beings, with admirable monsters, with wings of fire, and cuirasses of emerald, clad in a hundred kinds of enamel, armed with singular apparatus—no less brilliant than formidable; some in embrowned steel, shot with yellow—others in silken hoods, embroidered with black velvet; these with fine dashes of tawny silk on a rich mahogany ground; those in pomegranate-coloured velvet lit up with gold; others in luminous, indescribable azures, relieved by jet-black beads; and others, again, bright in metallic streaks alternating with heavy velvet.
It was as if they wished to say:—
"We in ourselves are the whole of Nature. If she perishes, we shall enact a drama, and personate all her creations. For if you look for rich furry garb, behold us here in mantles such as a Russian czarina never wore. Do you wish for feathers? behold us radiant in plumage which the humming-bird cannot equal; or if you prefer leaves, we can imitate them so as to deceive your eye. Even wood—in fact, all kinds of substances—there is nothing which we cannot imitate. Take, I pray you, this little twig, and hold it in your hand,—it is an insect!"
Then I was fairly conquered. I made a humble reverence to a people so redoubtable; with a burning brain I issued from the magic cave; and for a long time afterwards the sparkling scintillating masks danced and whirled around me, pursuing me, and maintaining on my retina their wild, strange revel.
And yet I had seen them only in cases and in boxes, as dead as in nature they were ardent and restless. What would have been my impression if I had seen them alive, and in motion,—especially in the burning climes where they abound and superabound,—where everything is in harmony with them,—where the air, the water, the flora, impregnated with prolific flames, rival the keen ardour of the animal hosts in the madness of love, of production precipitated and incessantly renewed by impatient death?
The American forests of Brazil and Guiana are the formidable furnaces in which the great exchange of life is uninterruptedly carried on. The fantastic faëry of the vegetable kingdom is in accord with that of the animated forces. Savage, harsh, and plaintive cries—not songs—form the woodland concert. Strange voices of birds, in the woods and the savannahs, relieve each other,—hoarse and vibrating, but regular, as if to mark the hours. They are the clock of the desert. Some by day, others by night; and perfectly distinct also at each of the three periods of the day,—morn, and noon, and evening. They disquiet the traveller, inasmuch as they reproduce our human voices or sounds, and seem ironical or mocking. One cries, another whistles, another sighs. This strikes like an alarm, that like a hammer, while a third imitates the tones of a bagpipe. The vast plains re-echo the mighty voice of the cariama. And that of the serpent-conqueror, the courageous kamichi, harsh and strong, echoing over the marshes, makes the savage tremble, for he thinks he hears the spirits passing.
At evening, with the song of the grasshoppers, the croaking of the frogs, the shriek of the owls, and the lamentations of the vampires, mingles the howl of the apes; until a hiss, which seems drawn from a wounded bosom, silences all, and spreads a universal terror, because it indicates the presence of the sharp-clawed prowler, the swift jaguar.
In these forests there is nothing to reassure you. Yonder green and peaceful waters, whence ever and anon proceeds the sound of half-choked sighs,—you place your foot upon them, and with terror discover that they are solid! that the surface is composed of great alligators, with their greenish backs resembling breadths of moss or aquatic herbs! Let a living creature appear, and immediately they raise their heads and put themselves in motion; you behold the strange assemblage rise from the slime in all their horror! But is this all?—Even these monsters which reign on the surface have their tyrants over them. The piranha, or razor-fish, as swift as the cayman is unwieldy, severs with its saw-like teeth the latter's tail, and carries it off before it can wheel round. The cayman, nearly always, mutilated in this manner, would perish, if its cuirass did not prevent its enemy from dissecting it. The same terrible anatomist, with a flash of its scalpel, cuts down as it passes the bird which skims the waves. Aquatic birds which have been wounded by it are frequently caught. And what, then, of the quadrupeds? The most powerful are devoured. A horrible combat is waged without pause in the deep waters,—in the waters living and overflowing with life, but with death also,—where is realized to the letter a rapid and furious suicide of Nature,—Nature devouring in order to re-create itself!
