Social Life in the Insect World | Page 3

fresh grass-green colour which is rapidly replaced by
brown.
We cannot suppose that the Greek peasant was so much less intelligent
than the Provençal that he can have failed to see what the least
observant must have noticed. He knew what my rustic neighbours
know so well. The scribe, whoever he may have been, who was
responsible for the fable was in the best possible circumstances for
correct knowledge of the subject. Whence, then, arose the errors of his
tale?
Less excusably than La Fontaine, the Greek fabulist wrote of the Cigale
of the books, instead of interrogating the living Cigale, whose cymbals
were resounding on every side; careless of the real, he followed
tradition. He himself echoed a more ancient narrative; he repeated some
legend that had reached him from India, the venerable mother of
civilisations. We do not know precisely what story the reed-pen of the
Hindoo may have confided to writing, in order to show the perils of a
life without foresight; but it is probable that the little animal drama was
nearer the truth than the conversation between the Cigale and the Ant.
India, the friend of animals, was incapable of such a mistake.
Everything seems to suggest that the principal personage of the original
fable was not the Cigale of the Midi, but some other creature, an insect

if you will, whose manners corresponded to the adopted text.
Imported into Greece, after long centuries during which, on the banks
of the Indus, it made the wise reflect and the children laugh, the ancient
anecdote, perhaps as old as the first piece of advice that a father of a
family ever gave in respect of economy, transmitted more or less
faithfully from one memory to another, must have suffered alteration in
its details, as is the fate of all such legends, which the passage of time
adapts to the circumstance of time and place.
The Greek, not finding in his country the insect of which the Hindoo
spoke, introduced the Cigale, as in Paris, the modern Athens, the Cigale
has been replaced by the Grasshopper. The mistake was made;
henceforth indelible. Entrusted as it is to the memory of childhood,
error will prevail against the truth that lies before our eyes.
Let us seek to rehabilitate the songstress so calumniated by the fable.
She is, I grant you, an importunate neighbour. Every summer she takes
up her station in hundreds before my door, attracted thither by the
verdure of two great plane-trees; and there, from sunrise to sunset, she
hammers on my brain with her strident symphony. With this deafening
concert thought is impossible; the mind is in a whirl, is seized with
vertigo, unable to concentrate itself. If I have not profited by the early
morning hours the day is lost.
Ah! Creature possessed, the plague of my dwelling, which I hoped
would be so peaceful!--the Athenians, they say, used to hang you up in
a little cage, the better to enjoy your song. One were well enough,
during the drowsiness of digestion; but hundreds, roaring all at once,
assaulting the hearing until thought recoils--this indeed is torture! You
put forward, as excuse, your rights as the first occupant. Before my
arrival the two plane-trees were yours without reserve; it is I who have
intruded, have thrust myself into their shade. I confess it: yet muffle
your cymbals, moderate your arpeggi, for the sake of your historian!
The truth rejects what the fabulist tells us as an absurd invention. That
there are sometimes dealings between the Cigale and the Ant is
perfectly correct; but these dealings are the reverse of those described
in the fable. They depend not upon the initiative of the former; for the

Cigale never required the help of others in order to make her living: on
the contrary, they are due to the Ant, the greedy exploiter of others,
who fills her granaries with every edible she can find. At no time does
the Cigale plead starvation at the doors of the ant-hills, faithfully
promising a return of principal and interest; the Ant on the contrary,
harassed by drought, begs of the songstress. Begs, do I say! Borrowing
and repayment are no part of the manners of this land-pirate. She
exploits the Cigale; she impudently robs her. Let us consider this theft;
a curious point of history as yet unknown.
In July, during the stifling hours of the afternoon, when the insect
peoples, frantic with drought, wander hither and thither, vainly seeking
to quench their thirst at the faded, exhausted flowers, the Cigale makes
light of the general aridity. With her rostrum, a delicate augur, she
broaches a cask of her inexhaustible store. Crouching, always singing,
on the twig of a suitable shrub or bush, she perforates the firm, glossy
rind, distended by