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Authors: (1) Nathan Lambert, Allen Institute for AI; (2) Roberto Calandra, TU Dresden. Table of Links Abstract & Introduction Related Work Background Understanding Objective Mismatch Discussions Conclusion Acknowledgments, and References 4 Understanding Objective Mismatch The objective mismatch in RLHF emerges from three broad causes: First, common practice in RL engineering dictates that as long as reward is increasing the model is improving. Second, the evaluation methods available for models trained with RLHF is often incomplete relative to their downstream use-cases. Third, the assumption that the reward model trained is a suitable reward function for optimization. For these reasons, objective mismatch emerges as the assumption that downstream evaluation will be correlated with the reward model score for the current policy, which is not proven. 4.1 Origins of mismatch Objective mismatch in RLHF is the result of the interactions between three different sub-components, rather than just the two (i.e., dynamics model and policy) from MBRL: It is a balance of the reward model training, the goal of getting a calibrated reward function, the policy training, the process of uniformly extracting information from the reward model, and the often bespoke evaluation techniques used for RLHF models, the process of fairly evaluating a multi-use model. There exists an interface between each pair of these three that provides an axis for erroneous assumptions regarding the true optimization problem, but the importance of each link is not uniform for mitigation. Uniformly extracting the information from the reward model into the policy and avoiding the reward hacking inherent to RL (Pan, Bhatia, & Steinhardt, 2022) that can result in overoptimization of reward models (Gao et al., 2022) is central to RLHF. A good reward model may not be one that is empirically easy to train a policy with high reward from, but rather one that is well correlated with downstream evaluation metrics. Common practice in RLHF, especially with larger models where gradients are less stable, is to spend additional compute in search of “stable” training runs with increasing reward, which induces further likelihood of mismatch. Reward model training ↔ policy model training While relatively little work and resources exist for the study of state-ofthe-art reward models, the matching of the reward signal they provide to the intended use-case of the final policy (via evaluation metrics) is central to solving the objective mismatch issue. The reward models are trained on aggregated datasets to maximize agreement of the model on a held out set of data, which in practice often only maximizes at 60-75% accuracy (Bai et al., 2022; Ouyang et al., 2022). Given the complex task encompassed in reward modeling, it is unlikely that the models converge to 100% accuracy, but studying the sources of this performance delta could indicate sources of mismatch. New tools are needed for evaluation of reward models that better match their conceptual underpinnings as a representation of human values for solving the alignment problem (Leike et al., 2018) and as a practical realization as targets for optimization Lambert, Gilbert, and Zick (2023). Reward model training ↔ evaluation tools The third link contributes the least to the emergence of mismatch, but is the easiest axis to visualization potential signs of objective mismatch. Directly matching RL training with any additional evaluation metrics is technically challenges. In MBRL, such a solution could be by using a differentiable simulator (R. Wei et al., 2023), but with the complexity of RLHF such solutions are less obtainable. Exploring any types of regularization or calibration of training with respect to final evaluations is viable as research directions, but this area of study is best suited for visualizing signs of objective mismatch, as shown in Fig. 3. Policy model training ↔ evaluation tools 4.2 Investigations and solutions There is already emerging research on many potential causes of mismatch in RLHF, yet further work can be inspired by solutions from the broader RL literature. Many of the solutions to objective mismatch in MBRL will not apply directly because in MBRL they have a true reward from the environment, and for that reason research is needed to understand the outputs of reward models. Here follows a series of investigations to expanded to mitigate objective mismatch: There are many axes by which a reward model is expected to behave in order to be a reasonable approximation of a reward function, but they are typically not studied. Reward models need to be assessed for consistency, robustness to adversarial attacks, calibration across distributions, and more, as discussed in Lambert, Gilbert, and Zick (2023). Understanding reward models performance is the foundation of solving the mismatch problem. Evaluating reward models will be a indirect but useful path to measure the varied preference datasets used for open RLHF models. • Reward model evaluation In order to solve limitations of reward models across better evaluation techniques, numerous new training methods will be developed. Early research has already shown reward model ensembles can help mitigate overoptimization (Coste et al., 2023). Further research is warranted to integrate techniques that have improved performance of model-based RL algorithms, such as probabilistic loss functions for the dynamics models and planning (Chua, Calandra, McAllister, & Levine, 2018), calibrated probability estimates (Malik et al., 2019) during training the reward model as a classifier, and other solutions (R. Wei et al., 2023). Additionally, links should be explored between the reward models of inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) (Ng, Russell, et al., 2000), the subfield tasked with learning a reward function from agent behavior, and those of RLHF. Early research also shows reformatting the reward model training to better match preference learning literature could improve performance (Knox et al., 2023). • Reward model training methods High-quality datasets are a bottleneck slowing progress in open RLHF research, given the large costs required to acquire them. There are a few datasets available, but they are unproven in their ability match the performance of the best models. The Stack Exchange preference dataset (Lambert, Tunstall, Rajani, & Thrush, 2023), Stanford Preferences Dataset of Reddit content (Ethayarajh, Choi, & Swayamdipta, 2022), UltraFeedback synthetic preference data (Cui et al., 2023), WebGPT internet browsing (Nakano et al., 2021), learning to summarize (Stiennon et al., 2020), and Anthropic HHH dataset (Askell et al., 2021) serve as a strong foundation for research, but exploration is needed. • Reward model training datasets techniques Increased compute can be spent at inference time to improve the performance of RLHF models by utilizing the values returned by the reward model (Deng & Raffel, 2023). Feng et al. (2023) explores this through Monte Carlo tree search generation, yet many more methods can be explored across the planning literature. • Value-guided sampling The most popular evaluation technique for chat-tuned RLHF models is preference percentage versus other top models on evaluation prompt sets (as done in open RLHF models including Llama 2 (Touvron et al., 2023) and Dromedary-2 (Sun et al., 2023)). This evaluation mechanism, while well-motivated in the popular use-cases of the models, suffers from bias and reproducibility challenges. The prompts can easily be chosen to support the model designed by the authors, and the prompts are often not released or aggregated into a future benchmark. Expanding the reproducibility and consistency of these practices will be important to creating robust practices for RLHF. • Human-centric NLP evaluation e As discussed in Sec. 2.1, the optimizers used for RLHF are most often those from previous RL literature. Now there is an opportunity for expansion of RL algorithms into the niche of RLHF, where conditions are highly specialized through the expansive actions space and bandits formulation. New algorithms are a step in the right direction, such as T. Wu et al. (2023) modifying the PPO algorithm for pairwise preferences or Baheti et al. (2023) proposing an offline RL algorithm for full-completion actions. • RL optimizers for languag Other creative mismatch solutions will exist, such as work integrating the LLM policy, reward model, and transition function into a single model (Xu, Dong, Arumugam, & Van Roy, 2023). Methods such as this need to be evaluated across many scales to confirm that they are still numerically stable with the larger state-of-the-art models where powerful emergent behaviors exist. • Other solutions 4.3 Mismatch of next-token prediction The original training object used in popular language model architectures, autoregressive next-token prediction also suffers from an objective mismatch problem, as almost all LLM evaluation techniques evaluate the entire output rather than individual tokens. While this is true, the development signal that the next-token prediction loss provides is more orthogonal to the goals of RLHF. In RLHF, and most related work in RL, the reward signal is interpretted as a direct indicator of performance. This assumption creates a much more unintentionally nuanced research setup, warranting the specific study of its impacts. In MBRL, the learning of a dynamics model is also often done via one-step transitions, with recent work studying autoregressive models (Janner, Li, & Levine, 2021; Lambert, Wilcox, Zhang, Pister, & Calandra, 2021), where the compounding error of multiple one-step predictions is well known as a deeply related issue to objective mismatch (Lambert, Pister, & Calandra, 2022). In the case where mismatch becomes a fundamental problem of LLMs, similar solutions could be investigated. This paper is under CC 4.0 license. available on arxiv

Understanding Objective Mismatch

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . THE INDIAN OCEAN here CHAPTER I: THE INDIAN OCEAN We now come to the second part of our journey under the sea. The first ended with the moving scene in the coral cemetery which left such a deep impression on my mind. Thus, in the midst of this great sea, Captain Nemo’s life was passing, even to his grave, which he had prepared in one of its deepest abysses. There, not one of the ocean’s monsters could trouble the last sleep of the crew of the , of those friends riveted to each other in death as in life. “Nor any man, either,” had added the Captain. Still the same fierce, implacable defiance towards human society! Nautilus I could no longer content myself with the theory which satisfied Conseil. That worthy fellow persisted in seeing in the Commander of the one of those unknown who return mankind contempt for indifference. For him, he was a misunderstood genius who, tired of earth’s deceptions, had taken refuge in this inaccessible medium, where he might follow his instincts freely. To my mind, this explains but one side of Captain Nemo’s character. Indeed, the mystery of that last night during which we had been chained in prison, the sleep, and the precaution so violently taken by the Captain of snatching from my eyes the glass I had raised to sweep the horizon, the mortal wound of the man, due to an unaccountable shock of the , all put me on a new track. No; Captain Nemo was not satisfied with shunning man. His formidable apparatus not only suited his instinct of freedom, but perhaps also the design of some terrible retaliation. Nautilus savants Nautilus At this moment nothing is clear to me; I catch but a glimpse of light amidst all the darkness, and I must confine myself to writing as events shall dictate. That day, the 24th of January, 1868, at noon, the second officer came to take the altitude of the sun. I mounted the platform, lit a cigar, and watched the operation. It seemed to me that the man did not understand French; for several times I made remarks in a loud voice, which must have drawn from him some involuntary sign of attention, if he had understood them; but he remained undisturbed and dumb. As he was taking observations with the sextant, one of the sailors of the (the strong man who had accompanied us on our first submarine excursion to the Island of Crespo) came to clean the glasses of the lantern. I examined the fittings of the apparatus, the strength of which was increased a hundredfold by lenticular rings, placed similar to those in a lighthouse, and which projected their brilliance in a horizontal plane. The electric lamp was combined in such a way as to give its most powerful light. Indeed, it was produced in vacuo, which insured both its steadiness and its intensity. This vacuum economised the graphite points between which the luminous arc was developed—an important point of economy for Captain Nemo, who could not easily have replaced them; and under these conditions their waste was imperceptible. When the was ready to continue its submarine journey, I went down to the saloon. The panel was closed, and the course marked direct west. Nautilus Nautilus We were furrowing the waters of the Indian Ocean, a vast liquid plain, with a surface of 1,200,000,000 of acres, and whose waters are so clear and transparent that any one leaning over them would turn giddy. The usually floated between fifty and a hundred fathoms deep. We went on so for some days. To anyone but myself, who had a great love for the sea, the hours would have seemed long and monotonous; but the daily walks on the platform, when I steeped myself in the reviving air of the ocean, the sight of the rich waters through the windows of the saloon, the books in the library, the compiling of my memoirs, took up all my time, and left me not a moment of ennui or weariness. Nautilus For some days we saw a great number of aquatic birds, sea-mews or gulls. Some were cleverly killed and, prepared in a certain way, made very acceptable water-game. Amongst large-winged birds, carried a long distance from all lands and resting upon the waves from the fatigue of their flight, I saw some magnificent albatrosses, uttering discordant cries like the braying of an ass, and birds belonging to the family of the long-wings. As to the fish, they always provoked our admiration when we surprised the secrets of their aquatic life through the open panels. I saw many kinds which I never before had a chance of observing. I shall notice chiefly ostracions peculiar to the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and that part which washes the coast of tropical America. These fishes, like the tortoise, the armadillo, the sea-hedgehog, and the Crustacea, are protected by a breastplate which is neither chalky nor stony, but real bone. In some it takes the form of a solid triangle, in others of a solid quadrangle. Amongst the triangular I saw some an inch and a half in length, with wholesome flesh and a delicious flavour; they are brown at the tail, and yellow at the fins, and I recommend their introduction into fresh water, to which a certain number of sea-fish easily accustom themselves. I would also mention quadrangular ostracions, having on the back four large tubercles; some dotted over with white spots on the lower part of the body, and which may be tamed like birds; trigons provided with spikes formed by the lengthening of their bony shell, and which, from their strange gruntings, are called “seapigs”; also dromedaries with large humps in the shape of a cone, whose flesh is very tough and leathery. I now borrow from the daily notes of Master Conseil. “Certain fish of the genus petrodon peculiar to those seas, with red backs and white chests, which are distinguished by three rows of longitudinal filaments; and some electrical, seven inches long, decked in the liveliest colours. Then, as specimens of other kinds, some ovoides, resembling an egg of a dark brown colour, marked with white bands, and without tails; diodons, real sea-porcupines, furnished with spikes, and capable of swelling in such a way as to look like cushions bristling with darts; hippocampi, common to every ocean; some pegasi with lengthened snouts, which their pectoral fins, being much elongated and formed in the shape of wings, allow, if not to fly, at least to shoot into the air; pigeon spatulae, with tails covered with many rings of shell; macrognathi with long jaws, an excellent fish, nine inches long, and bright with most agreeable colours; pale-coloured calliomores, with rugged heads; and plenty of chaetpdons, with long and tubular muzzles, which kill insects by shooting them, as from an air-gun, with a single drop of water. These we may call the flycatchers of the seas. “In the eighty-ninth genus of fishes, classed by Lacepede, belonging to the second lower class of bony, characterised by opercules and bronchial membranes, I remarked the scorpaena, the head of which is furnished with spikes, and which has but one dorsal fin; these creatures are covered, or not, with little shells, according to the sub-class to which they belong. The second sub-class gives us specimens of didactyles fourteen or fifteen inches in length, with yellow rays, and heads of a most fantastic appearance. As to the first sub-class, it gives several specimens of that singular looking fish appropriately called a ‘seafrog,’ with large head, sometimes pierced with holes, sometimes swollen with protuberances, bristling with spikes, and covered with tubercles; it has irregular and hideous horns; its body and tail are covered with callosities; its sting makes a dangerous wound; it is both repugnant and horrible to look at.” From the 21st to the 23rd of January the went at the rate of two hundred and fifty leagues in twenty-four hours, being five hundred and forty miles, or twenty-two miles an hour. If we recognised so many different varieties of fish, it was because, attracted by the electric light, they tried to follow us; the greater part, however, were soon distanced by our speed, though some kept their place in the waters of the for a time. The morning of the 24th, in 12° 5′ S. lat., and 94° 33′ long., we observed Keeling Island, a coral formation, planted with magnificent cocos, and which had been visited by Mr. Darwin and Captain Fitzroy. The skirted the shores of this desert island for a little distance. Its nets brought up numerous specimens of polypi and curious shells of mollusca. Some precious productions of the species of delphinulae enriched the treasures of Captain Nemo, to which I added an astraea punctifera, a kind of parasite polypus often found fixed to a shell. Nautilus Nautilus Nautilus Soon Keeling Island disappeared from the horizon, and our course was directed to the north-west in the direction of the Indian Peninsula. From Keeling Island our course was slower and more variable, often taking us into great depths. Several times they made use of the inclined planes, which certain internal levers placed obliquely to the waterline. In that way we went about two miles, but without ever obtaining the greatest depths of the Indian Sea, which soundings of seven thousand fathoms have never reached. As to the temperature of the lower strata, the thermometer invariably indicated 4° above zero. I only observed that in the upper regions the water was always colder in the high levels than at the surface of the sea. On the 25th of January the ocean was entirely deserted; the passed the day on the surface, beating the waves with its powerful screw and making them rebound to a great height. Who under such circumstances would not have taken it for a gigantic cetacean? Three parts of this day I spent on the platform. I watched the sea. Nothing on the horizon, till about four o’clock a steamer running west on our counter. Her masts were visible for an instant, but she could not see the , being too low in the water. I fancied this steamboat belonged to the P.O. Company, which runs from Ceylon to Sydney, touching at King George’s Point and Melbourne. Nautilus Nautilus At five o’clock in the evening, before that fleeting twilight which binds night to day in tropical zones, Conseil and I were astonished by a curious spectacle. It was a shoal of argonauts travelling along on the surface of the ocean. We could count several hundreds. They belonged to the tubercle kind which are peculiar to the Indian seas. These graceful molluscs moved backwards by means of their locomotive tube, through which they propelled the water already drawn in. Of their eight tentacles, six were elongated, and stretched out floating on the water, whilst the other two, rolled up flat, were spread to the wing like a light sail. I saw their spiral-shaped and fluted shells, which Cuvier justly compares to an elegant skiff. A boat indeed! It bears the creature which secretes it without its adhering to it. For nearly an hour the floated in the midst of this shoal of molluscs. Then I know not what sudden fright they took. But as if at a signal every sail was furled, the arms folded, the body drawn in, the shells turned over, changing their centre of gravity, and the whole fleet disappeared under the waves. Never did the ships of a squadron manœuvre with more unity. Nautilus At that moment night fell suddenly, and the reeds, scarcely raised by the breeze, lay peaceably under the sides of the . Nautilus The next day, 26th of January, we cut the equator at the eighty-second meridian and entered the northern hemisphere. During the day a formidable troop of sharks accompanied us, terrible creatures, which multiply in these seas and make them very dangerous. They were “cestracio philippi” sharks, with brown backs and whitish bellies, armed with eleven rows of teeth—eyed sharks—their throat being marked with a large black spot surrounded with white like an eye. There were also some Isabella sharks, with rounded snouts marked with dark spots. These powerful creatures often hurled themselves at the windows of the saloon with such violence as to make us feel very insecure. At such times Ned Land was no longer master of himself. He wanted to go to the surface and harpoon the monsters, particularly certain smooth-hound sharks, whose mouth is studded with teeth like a mosaic; and large tiger-sharks nearly six yards long, the last named of which seemed to excite him more particularly. But the , accelerating her speed, easily left the most rapid of them behind. Nautilus The 27th of January, at the entrance of the vast Bay of Bengal, we met repeatedly a forbidding spectacle, dead bodies floating on the surface of the water. They were the dead of the Indian villages, carried by the Ganges to the level of the sea, and which the vultures, the only undertakers of the country, had not been able to devour. But the sharks did not fail to help them at their funeral work. About seven o’clock in the evening, the , half-immersed, was sailing in a sea of milk. At first sight the ocean seemed lactified. Was it the effect of the lunar rays? No; for the moon, scarcely two days old, was still lying hidden under the horizon in the rays of the sun. The whole sky, though lit by the sidereal rays, seemed black by contrast with the whiteness of the waters. Nautilus Conseil could not believe his eyes, and questioned me as to the cause of this strange phenomenon. Happily I was able to answer him. “It is called a milk sea,” I explained. “A large extent of white wavelets often to be seen on the coasts of Amboyna, and in these parts of the sea.” “But, sir,” said Conseil, “can you tell me what causes such an effect? for I suppose the water is not really turned into milk.” “No, my boy; and the whiteness which surprises you is caused only by the presence of myriads of infusoria, a sort of luminous little worm, gelatinous and without colour, of the thickness of a hair, and whose length is not more than seven-thousandths of an inch. These insects adhere to one another sometimes for several leagues.” “Several leagues!” exclaimed Conseil. “Yes, my boy; and you need not try to compute the number of these infusoria. You will not be able, for, if I am not mistaken, ships have floated on these milk seas for more than forty miles.” Towards midnight the sea suddenly resumed its usual colour; but behind us, even to the limits of the horizon, the sky reflected the whitened waves, and for a long time seemed impregnated with the vague glimmerings of an aurora borealis. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (1994). Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/164/164-h/164-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

THE INDIAN OCEAN

For some days Avignon had its assassin

THE TRAVELLERS

Insect life: Souvenirs of a naturalist by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE EMIGRANTS XIV. THE EMIGRANTS I have already told how on the top of Mont Ventoux, some 6000 feet above the sea, I had one of those pieces of entomological good luck, which would be fruitful indeed did they but occur often enough to allow of continuous study. Unhappily mine is a unique observation, and I despair of repeating it. Future observers must replace my probabilities by certainties. I can only found conjectures on it. Under the shelter of a large flat stone I discovered some hundreds of Ammophila hirsuta, heaped in a mass almost as compact as a swarm of bees. As soon as the stone was lifted all the small people began to move about, but without any attempt to take wing. I moved whole handfuls, but not one seemed inclined to leave the heap. Common interests appeared to unite them indissolubly. Not one would go unless all went. With all possible care I examined the flat stone which sheltered them, as well as the soil and immediate neighbourhood, but could discover no explanation of this strange assemblage. Finding nothing better to do, I tried to count them, and then came the clouds to end my observations and plunge us into that perplexing darkness I have already described. At the first drops of rain I hastened to put back the stone and replace the Ammophila people under shelter. I give myself a good mark, as I hope the reader also will, for having taken the precaution of not leaving the poor things, disturbed by my curiosity, exposed to the downpour. AMMOPHILA HIRSUTA ATTACKING A GRUB Ammophila hirsuta is not rare in the plain, but is always found singly on the edge of a road or on sandy slopes, now digging a well, now dragging a heavy prey. It is solitary, like Sphex occitanica, and I was greatly surprised by finding such a number gathered under one stone at the top of Mont Ventoux. Instead of my solitary acquaintance, here was a great assembly. Let us try to educe the probable causes of this agglomeration. By an exception very rare among mining Hymenoptera, Ammophila hirsuta builds in the first days of spring. Toward the end of March, if the season be mild, or at least in the first fortnight of April, when the grasshoppers take their adult form, and painfully cast off their first skin on their thresholds,—when Narcissus poeticus expands its first flowers, and the bunting utters its long-drawn note from the top of the poplars in the meadow,—Ammophila hirsuta sets to work to hollow and provision a home for her larvæ, whereas other species and the predatory Hymenoptera in general undertake this labour only in autumn, during September and October. This very early nidification, preceding by six months the date adopted by the immense majority, at once suggests [ ]certain considerations. One asks if those found burrowing so early in April are really insects of that year—i.e. whether these spring workers completed their metamorphosis and came out of their cocoons during the preceding three months. The general rule is that the Fossor becomes a perfect insect, leaves its burrow, and occupies itself with its larvæ all in one season. It is in June and July that the greater part of the hunting Hymenoptera come from the galleries where they lived as larvæ, and in August, September, and October they follow their occupations as burrowers and hunters. 195 Does a similar law apply to Ammophila hirsuta? Does the same season witness the final transformation and the labours of the insect? It is very doubtful, for the Hymenoptera, occupied with mining at the end of March, would have to complete their metamorphosis and break forth from the cocoon in winter, or at latest in February. The severity of the climate at that date forbids any such conclusion. It is not when the bitter Mistral howls for a fortnight at a time and freezes the ground, nor when snow-storms follow its icy breath, that the delicate transformations of the nymph state can take place, and the perfect insect venture to quit the shelter of its cocoon. It needs the soft dampness of earth under a summer sun before it can leave its cell. If I did but know the exact date at which Ammophila hirsuta leaves the cocoon it would greatly help me; but, to my deep regret, I do not. My notes, gathered day by day, show the confusion inseparable from researches that are generally dealing with points that cannot be foreseen, and are [ ]silent on this point, whose importance I fully realise now that I want to arrange my materials in order to write these lines. I find mention of the Ammophila of the sands coming out of the egg on June 5, and A. argentata on the 20th; but I have nothing in my archives regarding the hatching of A. hirsuta. It is a detail left unnoticed through forgetfulness. The dates for the two other species accord with the general law, the perfect insect appearing at the hot time of year. By analogy I fix the same date for the coming forth of A. hirsuta from the cocoon. 196 Whence, then, come those which one sees at work on their burrows at the end of March and April? We must conclude that they were hatched in the previous year and emerged from their cells at the usual time in June and July, lived through the winter, and began to build as soon as spring came. In a word, they are insects that hibernate. Experience fully confirms this conclusion. Do but search patiently in a vertical bank of earth or sand well exposed to the sun, especially where generations of the various honey-gathering Hymenoptera have followed one another year after year, riddling the ground with a labyrinth of passages till it looks like a huge sponge, you are nearly sure to see in the heart of winter A. hirsuta either alone or in little parties of three or four, crouched in some warm retreat, waiting inactive till summer shall come. This cheering little meeting, amid the gloom and cold of winter, with the graceful insect which at the first notes of the bunting and the cricket enlivens the grassy paths, is one that I have been able to enjoy at will. If the weather be calm and the sun [ ]has a little power, the chilly insect comes out to bask on its threshold, luxuriating in the hottest beams, or it will venture timidly outside and walk slowly over the spongy bank, brushing its wings. So, too, does the little gray lizard, when the sun begins to warm the old wall which is its home. 197 But vainly would one seek in winter, even in the most sheltered spots, for a Cerceris, Sphex, Philanthus, Bembex, and other Hymenoptera with carnivorous larvæ. All died after their autumn labours, and their race is only represented by the larvæ benumbed down in their cells. Thus, by a very rare exception, Ammophila hirsuta, hatched in the hot season, passes the following winter in some warm refuge, and this is why it appears so early in the year. With these data let us try to explain the Ammophila swarm on the crest of Mont Ventoux. What could these numerous Hymenoptera under their sheltering stone have been about? Were they meaning to take up winter quarters there and await under their flat stone, benumbed, the season propitious to their labours? Everything points to the improbability of this. It is not in August, at the time of the greatest heat, that an animal is overcome with winter sleep. Want of their food—the honey juice sucked from flowers—cannot be suggested. September showers will soon come, and vegetation, suspended for a while by the heat of the dog days, will assume new vigour and cover the fields with a flowery carpet almost as varied as that of spring. This period—one of enjoyment for most of the Hymenoptera—cannot possibly be one of torpor for A. hirsuta. Again, can one suppose that the heights [ ]of Ventoux, swept by the gusty Mistral, uprooting beech and pine,—summits where the bise whirls about the snow for six months of the year,—crests wrapped for the greater part of the year by cold clouds and mist,—can be adopted as a winter refuge by such a sun-loving insect? One might as well make it hibernate among the ice fields of the North Cape! No, it is not there that A. hirsuta must pass the cold season. The group observed there were making a temporary halt. At the first indication of rain, which, though it escaped us, could not escape the insect so eminently sensitive to the variations of the atmosphere, the wayfarers had taken refuge under a stone, and were waiting for the rain to pass before they resumed their flight. Whence came they? Where were they going? 198 In this same month of August, and especially in September, there come to the warm olive region flocks of little migratory birds; descending by stages from the lands where they have loved,—fresher, more wooded, more peaceful lands than ours,—where they have brought up their broods. They come almost to a day in an invariable order, as if guided by the dates of an almanac known only to themselves. They sojourn for a while in our plains, where abound the insects which are the chief food of most of them; they visit every clod in our fields where the ploughshare has turned up innumerable worms in the furrows, and feast on them, and with this diet they speedily lay on fat,—a storehouse and reserve to serve as nutrition against toils to come, and thus well provided for the journey they go on southward, to reach winterless [ ]lands where insects are always to be found, such as Spain and Southern Italy, the isles of the Mediterranean and Africa. This is the season for the pleasure of shooting and for succulent roasts of small birds. 199 The Calandrelle, or Crèou, as Provence calls it, is the first to arrive. As soon as August has begun it may be seen exploring the stony fields, seeking the seeds of the Setaria, an ill weed affecting cultivated ground. At the least alarm it flies off, making a harsh guttural sound sufficiently expressed by its Provençal name. It is soon followed by the whinchat, which preys quietly on small weevils, crickets, and ants in old fields of luzern. With the whinchat begins the long line of small birds suitable for the spit. It is continued in September by the most celebrated of them—the common wheat-ear, glorified by all who are capable of appreciating its high qualities. Never did the Beccafico of the Roman gourmet, immortalised in Martial’s epigrams, rival the delicious, perfumed ball of fat the wheat-ear makes when it has grown scandalously obese on an immoderate diet. It consumes every kind of insect voraciously. My archives as a sportsman-naturalist give a list of the contents of its gizzard. All the small people of the fallows are in it,—larvæ and weevils of every kind, crickets, chrysomelides, grasshoppers, cassidides, earwigs, ants, spiders, hundred-legs, snails, wire-worms, and ever so many more. And as a change from this spicy diet there are grapes, blackberries, and cornel-berries. Such is the bill of fare sought incessantly by the wheat-ear as it flutters from clod to clod, the white feathers of its [ ]outspread tail giving it the look of a butterfly on the wing. Heaven only knows to what amount of fat it can attain. 200 Only one other bird surpasses it in the art of fattening itself, and that is its fellow emigrant,—another voracious devourer of insects,—the bush pipit as it is absurdly styled by those who name birds, while the dullest of our shepherds never hesitate to call it Le Grasset, i.e. the fattest of the fat. The name is sufficient to point out its leading characteristic. Never another bird attains such a degree of obesity. A moment arrives when, loaded all over with fat, it becomes like a small pat of butter. The unfortunate bird can hardly flutter from one mulberry tree to another, panting in the thick foliage, half choked with melting fat, a victim to his love of weevil. October brings the slender gray wagtail, pied ash colour and white, with a large black velvet gorget. The charming bird, running and wagging its tail, follows the ploughman almost under the horses’ feet, picking up insects in the newly turned furrow. About the same time comes the lark,—first in little companies thrown out as scouts, then in countless bands which take possession of cornfield and fallow, where abounds their usual food, the seeds of the Setaria. Then on the plain, amid the sparkle of dewdrops and frost crystals suspended to each blade of grass, a mirror shoots intermittent flashes under the morning sun. Then the little owl, driven from shelter by the sportsman, makes its short flight, alights, stands upright with sudden starts and rolling of alarmed eyes, and the lark comes with a dipping [ ]flight, anxious for a close inspection of the bright thing or the odd bird. There it is, some fifteen paces away—its feet hanging, its wings outspread like a saint-esprit. The moment has come; aim and fire. I hope that my readers may experience the emotions of this delightful sport. 201 With the lark, and often in the same flocks, comes the titlark—the sisi—another word giving the bird’s little call. None rushes more vehemently upon the owl, round and round which it circles and hovers incessantly. This may suffice as a review of the birds which visit us. Most of them make it only a halting-place, staying for a few weeks, attracted by the abundance of food, especially of insects; then, strengthened and plump, off they go. A few take up winter quarters in our plains, where snow is very rare, and there are countless little seeds to be picked up even in the heart of the cold season. The lark which searches wheat fields and fallows is one; another is the titlark, which prefers fields of luzern and meadows. The skylark, so common in almost every part of France, does not nest in the plains of Vaucluse, where it is replaced by the crested lark—friend of the highway and of the road-mender. But it is not necessary to go far north to find the favourite places for its broods; the next department, the Drôme, is rich in its nests. Very probably, therefore, among the flocks of larks which take possession of our plains for all autumn and winter many come from no farther than the Drôme. They need only migrate into the next department to find plains that know not snow, and a certainty of little seeds.[ ] 202 A like migration to a short distance seems to me to have caused the assemblage of Ammophila on the top of Mont Ventoux. I have proved that this insect spends the winter in the perfect state, sheltering somewhere and awaiting April to build its nest. Like the lark it must take precautions against the cold season; though capable of fasting till flowers return, the chilly thing must find protection against the deadly attacks of the cold. It must flee snowy districts, where the soil is deeply frozen, and, gathering in troops like migrant birds, cross hill and dale to seek a home in old walls and banks warmed by a southern sun. When the cold is gone, all or part of the band will return whence they came. This would explain the assemblage on Mont Ventoux. It was a migrant tribe, which, on its way from the cold land of the Drôme to descend into the warm plains of the olive, had to cross the deep, wide valley of the Toulourenc, and, surprised by the rain, halted on the mountain top. Apparently A. hirsuta has to migrate to escape winter cold. When the small migratory birds set out in flocks, it too must journey from a cold district to a neighbouring one which is warmer. Some valleys crossed, some mountains overpassed, and it finds the climate sought. I have two other instances of extraordinary insect gatherings at great heights. I have seen the chapel on Mont Ventoux covered with seven-spotted ladybirds, as they are popularly called. These insects clung to the stone of walls and pavement so close together that the rude building looked, at a few paces off, like an object made of coral beads. I should not dare to say how many myriads were [ ]assembled there. Certainly it was not food which had attracted these eaters of Aphidæ to the top of Mont Ventoux, some 6000 feet high. Vegetation is too scanty—never Aphis ventured up there. 203 Another time, in June, on the tableland of St. Amand, at a height of 734 mètres, I saw a similar gathering, only less numerous. At the most projecting part of the tableland, on the edge of an escarpment of perpendicular rocks, rises a cross with a pedestal of hewn stone. On every side of this pedestal, and on the rocks serving as its base, the very same beetle, the seven-spotted ladybird of Mont Ventoux, was gathered in legions. They were mostly quite still, but wherever the sunbeams struck there was a continuous exchange of place between the newcomers, who wanted to find room, and those resting, who took wing only to return after a short flight. Neither here any more than on the top of Mont Ventoux was there anything to explain the cause of these strange assemblages on arid spots without Aphidæ and noways attractive to Coccinellidæ,—nothing which could suggest the secret of these populous gatherings upon masonry standing at so great an elevation. Have we here two examples of insect migration? Can there be a general meeting such as swallows hold before the day of their common departure? Were these rendezvous whence the cloud of ladybirds were to seek some district richer in food? It may be so, but it is very extraordinary. The ladybird has never been talked of for her love of travel. She seems a home-loving creature enough when we see her slaying the green-fly on rose trees, [ ]and black-fly on beans, and yet with her short wings she mounts to the top of Ventoux and holds a general assembly where the swallow herself only ascends in her wildest flights. Why these gatherings at such heights? Why this liking for blocks of masonry? 204 About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jean-Henri Fabre (2022). Insect life: Souvenirs of a naturalist. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66762/pg66762-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html .

THE EMIGRANTS

THE LAWS OF VARIABILITY WITH RESPECT TO ANIMALS AND PLANTS

THE EXPERIMENTAL FARM

Moby-Dick; or The Whale, by Herman Melville is part of HackerNoon’s Book Blog Post series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here: . Chapter 101: The Decanter [LINK TO TABLE OF LINK] CHAPTER 101. The Decanter. Ere the English ship fades from sight, be it set down here, that she hailed from London, and was named after the late Samuel Enderby, merchant of that city, the original of the famous whaling house of Enderby & Sons; a house which in my poor whaleman’s opinion, comes not far behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in point of real historical interest. How long, prior to the year of our Lord 1775, this great whaling house was in existence, my numerous fish-documents do not make plain; but in that year (1775) it fitted out the first English ships that ever regularly hunted the Sperm Whale; though for some score of years previous (ever since 1726) our valiant Coffins and Maceys of Nantucket and the Vineyard had in large fleets pursued that Leviathan, but only in the North and South Atlantic: not elsewhere. Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were the first among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm Whale; and that for half a century they were the only people of the whole globe who so harpooned him. In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose, and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whale-boat of any sort in the great South Sea. The voyage was a skilful and lucky one; and returning to her berth with her hold full of the precious sperm, the Amelia’s example was soon followed by other ships, English and American, and thus the vast Sperm Whale grounds of the Pacific were thrown open. But not content with this good deed, the indefatigable house again bestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons—how many, their mother only knows—and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their expense, the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea. Commanded by a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it, and did some service; how much does not appear. But this is not all. In 1819, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship of their own, to go on a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan. That ship—well called the “Syren”—made a noble experimental cruise; and it was thus that the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became generally known. The Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by a Captain Coffin, a Nantucketer. All honor to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think, exists to the present day; though doubtless the original Samuel must long ago have slipped his cable for the great South Sea of the other world. The ship named after him was worthy of the honor, being a very fast sailer and a noble craft every way. I boarded her once at midnight somewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank good flip down in the forecastle. It was a fine gam we had, and they were all trumps—every soul on board. A short life to them, and a jolly death. And that fine gam I had—long, very long after old Ahab touched her planks with his ivory heel—it minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that ship; and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember me, if I ever lose sight of it. Flip? Did I say we had flip? Yes, and we flipped it at the rate of ten gallons the hour; and when the squall came (for it’s squally off there by Patagonia), and all hands—visitors and all—were called to reef topsails, we were so top-heavy that we had to swing each other aloft in bowlines; and we ignorantly furled the skirts of our jackets into the sails, so that we hung there, reefed fast in the howling gale, a warning example to all drunken tars. However, the masts did not go overboard; and by and by we scrambled down, so sober, that we had to pass the flip again, though the savage salt spray bursting down the forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted and pickled it to my taste. The beef was fine—tough, but with body in it. They said it was bull-beef; others, that it was dromedary beef; but I do not know, for certain, how that was. They had dumplings too; small, but substantial, symmetrically globular, and indestructible dumplings. I fancied that you could feel them, and roll them about in you after they were swallowed. If you stooped over too far forward, you risked their pitching out of you like billiard-balls. The bread—but that couldn’t be helped; besides, it was an anti-scorbutic; in short, the bread contained the only fresh fare they had. But the forecastle was not very light, and it was very easy to step over into a dark corner when you ate it. But all in all, taking her from truck to helm, considering the dimensions of the cook’s boilers, including his own live parchment boilers; fore and aft, I say, the Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship; of good fare and plenty; fine flip and strong; crack fellows all, and capital from boot heels to hat-band. But why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some other English whalers I know of—not all though—were such famous, hospitable ships; that passed round the beef, and the bread, and the can, and the joke; and were not soon weary of eating, and drinking, and laughing? I will tell you. The abounding good cheer of these English whalers is matter for historical research. Nor have I been at all sparing of historical whale research, when it has seemed needed. The English were preceded in the whale fishery by the Hollanders, Zealanders, and Danes; from whom they derived many terms still extant in the fishery; and what is yet more, their fat old fashions, touching plenty to eat and drink. For, as a general thing, the English merchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the English whaler. Hence, in the English, this thing of whaling good cheer is not normal and natural, but incidental and particular; and, therefore, must have some special origin, which is here pointed out, and will be still further elucidated. During my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled upon an ancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of it, I knew must be about whalers. The title was, “Dan Coopman,” wherefore I concluded that this must be the invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam cooper in the fishery, as every whale ship must carry its cooper. I was reinforced in this opinion by seeing that it was the production of one “Fitz Swackhammer.” But my friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned man, professor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa Claus and St. Pott’s, to whom I handed the work for translation, giving him a box of sperm candles for his trouble—this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as he spied the book, assured me that “Dan Coopman” did not mean “The Cooper,” but “The Merchant.” In short, this ancient and learned Low Dutch book treated of the commerce of Holland; and, among other subjects, contained a very interesting account of its whale fishery. And in this chapter it was, headed, “Smeer,” or “Fat,” that I found a long detailed list of the outfits for the larders and cellars of 180 sail of Dutch whalemen; from which list, as translated by Dr. Snodhead, I transcribe the following: 400,000 lbs. of beef. 60,000 lbs. Friesland pork. 150,000 lbs. of stock fish. 550,000 lbs. of biscuit. 72,000 lbs. of soft bread. 2,800 firkins of butter. 20,000 lbs. Texel & Leyden cheese. 144,000 lbs. cheese (probably an inferior article). 550 ankers of Geneva. 10,800 barrels of beer. Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading; not so in the present case, however, where the reader is flooded with whole pipes, barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and good cheer. At the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting of all this beer, beef, and bread, during which many profound thoughts were incidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental and Platonic application; and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary tables of my own, touching the probable quantity of stock-fish, etc., consumed by every Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen whale fishery. In the first place, the amount of butter, and Texel and Leyden cheese consumed, seems amazing. I impute it, though, to their naturally unctuous natures, being rendered still more unctuous by the nature of their vocation, and especially by their pursuing their game in those frigid Polar Seas, on the very coasts of that Esquimaux country where the convivial natives pledge each other in bumpers of train oil. The quantity of beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels. Now, as those polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen, including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not much exceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men to each of their fleet of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I say, we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks’ allowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin. Now, whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might fancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in a boat’s head, and take good aim at flying whales; this would seem somewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too. But this was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with the constitution; upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would be apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his boat; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford. But no more; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch whalers of two or three centuries ago were high livers; and that the English whalers have not neglected so excellent an example. For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least. And this empties the decanter. About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved April 2022 from Melville, Herman, 2001. Moby-Dick: or The Whale. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm#link2HCH0101 This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

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