Copyright, 1922 By DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, Inc. PRINTED IN U. S. A. [ v ] This, if we count The Life of the Weevil as the third, is the fourth and last volume on Beetles in the Collected English Edition of Fabre’s entomological works. The first was entitled The Sacred Beetle and Others ; the second The Glow-worm and Other Beetles . Of the fourteen chapters, part of the four devoted to the Minotaur appeared, in an abbreviated form, in The Life and Love of the Insect , prepared by myself for Messr

[ ix ] [ 1 ] My hermitage boasts a long, wide lilac-walk. When May is here and the two rows of bushes, bending beneath their load of clustering blooms, form pointed arches overhead, this walk becomes a chapel, in which the loveliest festival of the year is celebrated beneath the kisses of the morning sun: a peaceful festival, with no flags flapping at the windows, no expenditure of gun-powder, no drunken squabbles; a festival of simple creatures disturbed neither by the harsh brass band of the d

Almost as numerous but less sudden in flight, because of his wide-spreading wings, is the Machaon, the magnificent Swallow-tail Butterfly, with the orange spots and the blue crescents. The children have come to join me. They are enraptured by this elegant creature, which always escapes their pouncing hands and flies a little farther to taste the nectar of the flowers while moving its wings after the fashion of the Cabbage Butterfly. If the pump is working quietly in the sunlight, if the syrup is

Despite their habit of dwelling in fetid surroundings, the Saprini are pretty insects. Well-armoured, thickset, moving by fits and starts with short, quick steps, they glisten like beads of jet. On their shoulders are [ 37 ] chevron-like stripes which the classifier notes to mark where he stands in the midst of this specific variety; they temper the brilliance of their black wing-cases with stippled spaces which diffuse the light. Some display polished, shimmering patches on a dull-bronze backgr

Everything suits them in the way of animal clothing: bristles, hair, scales, horn, fur, feather; but for their labours they need darkness and repose. In the sunshine and bustle of the open air they refuse the relics in my pans; they wait until a gust of wind sweeps the charnel-pits and carries the Mole’s velvety down or the reptile’s parchment into a shady corner. Then, infallibly, the cast-off garments of the dead will disappear. As for the bones, the atmospheric agencies, having plenty of time

Insects are easy to obtain, by no means burdensome to feed and not repulsive when subjected to a physical examination; and they lend themselves far better than the higher animals to our curious investigations. Besides, the others are our near kinsfolk and do but repeat a somewhat monotonous theme, whereas insects, with their unparalleled wealth of instincts, habits and structure, reveal a new world to us, much as though we were conferring with the natives of another planet. This is why I hold in

To make sure of these windows and save the insect from them, I sheath the tube in a few cardboard sheaths which can be gently slipped up and down and which fit inside one another. With this arrangement, I shall be able, when required, and without distracting the insect from its work, to create alternately, by a simple movement of the thumb, a little light for myself and darkness for the Beetle. The distribution of the movable sheaths, which slip up or down as needed, will allow the tube to be ex

Besides, the same fact recurs under normal conditions. In my dozen excavations in the fields—that their number was no greater must be attributed to the difficulty of the operation—the egg was lacking in three instances. The larder was deserted. No laying had taken place; and the provisions were there, manipulated in the usual fashion. What I suspect is that the mother, not feeling in her ovaries germs ripened to the requisite degree, none the less labours to provide a store of food with her coll

Such is the argument of the theorists, an argument sufficiently imposing to allure any independent mind, did not the empty resonance of words usurp the full sonority of reality. Let us question the Minotaur about all this. To be sure, he will not reveal to us the origin of instinct; he will leave the problem as obscure as ever; but he will at least be able to cast a glimmer into some little corner; and any light, however faint, even the flickering light of a taper, must be welcome in the dark ta

Let us not keep too strictly to the tree mentioned in the Latin text, but consider what the old author had really in mind when he spoke of these worms. We shall find other worms no less worthy of the title of Cossus than the Oak-worm, for instance the worm of the chestnut-tree, the larva of the Stag-beetle. One indispensable condition must be fulfilled to earn the celebrated name: the grub [ 176 ] must be plump, of a good size and not too repulsive in appearance. Now by a curious freak of scient

To treat fevers, we must divide the Fuller Beetle into two parts and fasten one half to the right arm and the other half to the left. Now what did the ancient naturalist mean by this term Fuller Beetle? We do not know exactly. The description albis guttis , white spots, would fit the white-flecked Pinechafer pretty well, but it is not enough to make us certain. Pliny himself seems to have been none too sure of his wonderful cure. In his time, men’s eyes had not yet learnt how to look at the inse

How is this division of the earth’s abundance among its consumers effected? We can hardly hope to understand the problem; it is too far beyond our methods of research. The most that we can do is, by experimental methods, to explore this corner of the unknown a little, to seek to discover how far the insect’s diet is fixed and to note its variations, if any. This will give us data which the future will employ to carry the problem farther. Towards the end of the autumn, I had placed in the vivariu

At first, all went according to rule, the mother digging and the father clearing away the rubbish. A few droppings were stored; then, on reaching the bottom of the test-tube, the couple pined away and died. The layer of sand was not deep enough. Before piling the food-sausage on top of an egg, the pair needed a shaft at least forty inches in depth, whereas they had only some eighteen inches to dig in. This failure did not put an end to my list of questions. Where did that pigmy spring from? Was

In the adult form, the Sacred Beetle and his kinsfolk, the Half-spotted Scarab, 1 the broad-necked Scarab 2 and the Pock-marked [ 259 ] Scarab 3 —the only three that I know—are likewise atrophied: all of them lack the tarsi of the fore-legs. These four witnesses prove to us that this singular mutilation is common to the whole group. An absurd system of nomenclature has seen fit, in its blindness, to substitute for the ancient and venerable term of Scarabæus that of Ateuchus, meaning weaponless.

The speed of the assassination is even more remarkable when we consider the difficulties of the attack. The Carabus has nothing like the endless chain which seizes the Pig by one leg, hoists it up and swings it along to the butcher’s knife; he has nothing like the sliding plank which brings the Bullock’s forehead beneath the slaughterer’s mallet; he has to fall upon his prey, overpower it and steer clear of its tusks and claws. Moreover, what he disembowels he eats on the spot. What a massacre i

In evidence of these unusual banquets, I will mention certain dejecta found in the enclosure and composed almost entirely of Gold Beetles’ wing-cases. The remainder of the product, the paste joining the golden scales together, consisted of Ants’ heads, the authentic work of the consumer. So the Toad feeds on Carabi when he has the opportunity. He, our garden helper, robs us of another helper no less valuable. The useful, from our point of view, destroys the useful: a little lesson which should m

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