The Wonders of Instinct | Page 8

eggs, the size of peppercorns, wrapped
round his hind-legs: the genial paterfamilias has brought his precious
packet from afar, to leave it in the water and afterwards retire under
some flat stone, whence he will emit a sound like a tinkling bell. Lastly,
when not croaking amid the foliage, the Tree-frogs indulge in the most
graceful dives. And so, in May, as soon as it is dark, the pond becomes
a deafening orchestra: it is impossible to talk at table, impossible to
sleep. We had to remedy this by means perhaps a little too rigorous.
What could we do? He who tries to sleep and cannot needs become
ruthless.
Bolder still, the Wasp has taken possession of the dwelling-house. On
my door-sill, in a soil of rubbish, nestles the White-banded Sphex:
when I go indoors, I must be careful not to damage her burrows, not to
tread upon the miner absorbed in her work. It is quite a quarter of a
century since I last saw the saucy Cricket-hunter. When I made her
acquaintance, I used to visit her at a few miles' distance: each time, it
meant an expedition under the blazing August sun. To-day I find her at
my door; we are intimate neighbours. The embrasure of the closed
window provides an apartment of a mild temperature for the Pelopaeus.
(A species of Mason-wasp--Translator's Note.) The earth-built nest is
fixed against the freestone wall. To enter her home, the Spider-huntress
uses a little hole left open by accident in the shutters. On the mouldings
of the Venetian blinds, a few stray Mason-bees build their group of
cells; inside the outer shutters, left ajar, a Eumenes (Another
Mason-wasp--Translator's Note.) constructs her little earthen dome,
surmounted by a short, bell-mouthed neck. The Common Wasp and the
Polistes (A Wasp that builds her nest in trees--Translator's Note.) are
my dinner-guests: they visit my table to see if the grapes served are as
ripe as they look.
Here surely--and the list is far from complete--is a company both
numerous and select, whose conversation will not fail to charm my
solitude, if I succeed in drawing it out. my dear beasts of former days,
my old friends, and others, more recent acquaintances, all are here,
hunting, foraging, building in close proximity. Besides, should we wish
to vary the scene of observation, the mountain (Mont Ventoux, an

outlying summit of the Alps, 6,270 feet high.--Translator's Note.) is but
a few hundred steps away, with its tangle of arbutus, rock-roses and
arborescent heather; with its sandy spaces dear to the Bembeces; with
its marly slopes exploited by different Wasps and Bees. And that is
why, foreseeing these riches, I have abandoned the town for the village
and come to Sérignan to weed my turnips and water my lettuces.
Laboratories are being founded at great expense, on our Atlantic and
Mediterranean coasts, where people cut up small sea-animals, of but
meagre interest to us; they spend a fortune on powerful microscopes,
delicate dissecting-instruments, engines of capture, boats, fishing-crews,
aquariums, to find out how the yolk of an Annelid's (A red-blooded
Worm.--Translator's Note.) egg is constructed, a question whereof I
have never yet been able to grasp the full importance; and they scorn
the little land-animal, which lives in constant touch with us, which
provides universal psychology with documents of inestimable value,
which too often threatens the public wealth by destroying our crops.
When shall we have an entomological laboratory for the study not of
the dead insect, steeped in alcohol, but of the living insect; a laboratory
having for its object the instinct, the habits, the manner of living, the
work, the struggles, the propagation of that little world with which
agriculture and philosophy have most seriously to reckon? To know
thoroughly the history of the destroyer of our vines might perhaps be
more important than to know how this or that nerve-fibre of a Cirriped
ends (Cirripeds are sea-animals with hair-like legs, including the
Barnacles and Acorn-shells.--Translator's Note.); to establish by
experiment the line of demarcation between intellect and instinct; to
prove, by comparing facts in the zoological progression, whether
human reason be an irreducible faculty or not: all this ought surely to
take precedence of the number of joints in a Crustacean's antenna.
These enormous questions would need an army of workers; and we
have not one. The fashion is all for the Mollusc and the Zoophyte.
(Zoophytes are plant-like sea-animals, including Star-fishes,
Jelly-fishes, Sea-anemones, and Sponges.--Translator's Note.) The
depths of the sea are explored with many drag-nets; the soil which we
tread is consistently disregarded. While waiting for the fashion to
change, I open my harmas laboratory of living entomology; and this

laboratory shall not cost the ratepayers one farthing.
CHAPTER 2.
THE GREEN GRASSHOPPER.
We are in the middle of July. The astronomical dog-days