Forestme

forestme

ONCE AND NOW.

THE OLD SQUIRE'S TROUBLES.

A TALE OF THE PASSIONS; OR, THE DEATH OF DESPINA

SIX WEEKS AT HEPPENHEIM

“THE MORE HASTE THE WORSE SPEED.”

The scale of CO2 emissions released into the air worldwide is unstoppably rising, with the carbon footprint of the most advanced and industrially intensive economies taking a toll on the local environment. As a result, people in all corners of the world are deprived of a basic right to breathe fresh air and drink clean water. These adverse trends observed in many regions have given rise to a variety of green initiatives aimed to reduce CO2 emissions, conserve natural resources, and ensure vulnerable ecosystems’ survival. Tree Planting for Climate Change Offsetting The simplest and the most effective way to combat this ecological crisis is tree planting. This initiative serves as a sequestration measure for minimizing the impact of CO2 emissions on the local communities and the environment. Tree planting has been a popular offset measure across the globe, with over 1.8 billion trees planted in 2021 only. Yet, humanity shouldn’t stop at that, as argue that a minimum of 1.2 trillion new trees are needed to revert climate change’s disastrous dynamics. climate ecologists Recently, supported by Bitkraft Foundation and Terraformation, the project (Re-climate) launched a green initiative for tree planting in the Rivne region of Ukraine. ‘ Treetrio It was an ambitious project aimed at restoring the local forests’ biodiversity and capturing the CO2 emissions released by local industrial facilities. Treetrio initiated this project as part of its far-reaching mission of attaining sustainable forest management and rejuvenating the local environment to address the harms of climate change. The project involved planting massive forest areas in four districts within a Rivne-located forestry cooperative. The joint team selected those districts to achieve the greatest impact in terms of ecosystem revival and CO2 sequestration. As a result of thorough planning, the Treetrio project covered the following areas: 🌿 Blazhivske – 21.9 hectares 🌿 Snovidovytske – 10.6 hectares 🌿 Kamyanske – 3.5 hectares 🌿 Karpilivske – 14.0 hectares The team for tree planting included 23 hired staff – 13 men and 10 women – responsible for tree placement and organizing all the processes. The project started in November 2021, with the second planting phase scheduled for March 2022 – the time when Ukraine was already under massive attacks and hostilities unleashed by Russia. However, the team’s resilience and commitment to the initial goal were unrivaled, with all the milestones completed on time. The initiative’s implementation encountered several unexpected challenges underway, with a surge in fuel prices increasing the total cost estimation of the project. As a result, the project’s budget rose by 19%, which was compensated jointly by all project participants. The planting process entailed the use of tractors, specialized team engagement, smart tree mapping with software use, and the replacement of non-germinated seedlings. Besides, the initial two-week planting session in November 2021 had to be paused because of the unfortunate weather conditions and early snowfall. The second planting phase was scheduled for March 2022, even amid the war hostilities, which reveals the team’s heroism and commitment to green initiatives and biodiversity preservation. About Treetrio Treetrio is a sustainable forest management project aimed to unify local foresters and small businesses and give each of them a fair role in biodiversity restoration in the Rivne region. Though the primary focus of tree planting initiatives is CO2 sequestration, this initiative’s impact goes far beyond this outcome, covering: Local economy stimuli Water resource conservation Forest revival Biodiversity protection Carbon sink setup Hindering the desertification dynamics in the region. As a result of pursuing a number of tree-planting initiatives in the region, Treetrio has managed to attain the following award-winning milestones: The proliferation of 12 tree species 50 hectares of new forests planted in the Rivne region 100,000 planted trees 90% of all plants’ survival rate The far-reaching goals of the Treetrio initiative cover tree management, replacement of non-viable seedlings, and tree planting for the next 45 years. To help foresters handle the project’s large scale and manage huge forest areas, the Treetrio team integrated smart software to simplify tracking and trained the involved team. Each planted tree has a mark and is conveniently tagged on the smart map, guaranteeing proper monitoring. To date, the project has been implemented by 40%, with 40,000 out of the planned 100,000 already planted. This contribution to the Rivne region’s carbon emission reduction and biodiversity enrichment is unrivaled, promising substantial gains and benefits for the local population. As this project goes on, Treetrio makes vital steps toward a greener, cleaner environment in the region and a more sustainable future for Ukraine with the unending support of all engaged parties, including 4IRE. Mitigating Climate Crisis With Blockchain & GreenFi , a Swedish-Ukrainian blockchain development company, is another example of a company that supports green initiatives for the sake of sustainable, positive ecological gains. 4IRE The team offers a unique combination of technical expertise in the digital solutions underlying Green Finance projects and domain-specific expertise in the environmental landscape for such projects. They’ve participated in several impactful GreenFi projects and offer white-label Carbon Credit Marketplace software to speed up such projects’ market entry and development. Blockchain is at the heart of many GreenFi solutions ensuring the project’s security, technical excellence, and transparency vital for the GreenFi industry. Blockchain operations rest on the principle of transaction recording into a public ledger, immutable to manipulations and decentralized for ultimate user control. Such technical execution raises user trust in GreenFi projects and attracts a larger audience of consumers and investors interested in contributing to a positive environmental change. New Projects for Treetrio and 4IRE After the inspiring success of the reforestation initiative in the Rivne region, 4IRE is planning to join hands with Treetrio in another sustainable project – post-war forest revival in the regions affected by hostilities, such as Kherson, Odesa, and Mykolaiv. The present-day preparation for this large-scale work involves compiling an expert team of forestry scholars and practitioners who will collaborate with interested investors to renew Ukrainian biodiversity. Treetrio’s prior hands-on experience in tree planting is an invaluable contribution to this ambitious plan, promising effective solutions for the unprecedented ecological problems. We are optimistic that the emergence of further green initiatives, similar to the remarkable project led by Treetrio, will play a pivotal role in shaping a more environmentally conscious and sustainable future for Ukraine. It is important that we unite our efforts and work diligently for a beautiful tomorrow in our nation.

Building a Greener Future: Restoring Biodiversity in Ukraine

Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . QUEER STREET, NUMBER FORTY here CHAPTER XVIII. QUEER STREET, NUMBER FORTY Lady Muriel was the speaker. And, for the moment, that was the only fact I could clearly realise. But how she came to be there and how I came to be there—and how the glass of champagne came to be there—all these were questions which I felt it better to think out in silence, and not commit myself to any statement till I understood things a little more clearly. 'First accumulate a mass of Facts: and then construct a Theory.' That, I believe, is the true Scientific Method. I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and began to accumulate Facts. A smooth grassy slope, bounded, at the upper end, by venerable ruins half buried in ivy, at the lower, by a stream seen through arching trees—a dozen gaily-dressed people, seated in little groups here and there—some open hampers—the debris of a picnic—such were the Facts accumulated by the Scientific Researcher. And now, what deep, far-reaching Theory was he to construct from them? The Researcher found himself at fault. Yet stay! One Fact had escaped his notice. While all the rest were grouped in twos and in threes, Arthur was alone: while all tongues were talking, his was silent: while all faces were gay, his was gloomy and despondent. Here was a Fact indeed! The Researcher felt that a Theory must be constructed without delay. Lady Muriel had just risen and left the party. Could that be the cause of his despondency? The Theory hardly rose to the dignity of a Working Hypothesis. Clearly more Facts were needed. The Researcher looked round him once more: and now the Facts accumulated in such bewildering profusion, that the Theory was lost among them. For Lady Muriel had gone to meet a strange gentleman, just visible in the distance: and now she was returning with him, both of them talking eagerly and joyfully, like old friends who have been long parted: and now she was moving from group to group, introducing the new hero of the hour: and he, young, tall, and handsome, moved gracefully at her side, with the erect bearing and firm tread of a soldier. Verily, the Theory looked gloomy for Arthur! His eye caught mine, and he crossed to me. “He is very handsome,” I said. “Abominably handsome!” muttered Arthur: then smiled at his own bitter words. “Lucky no one heard me but you!” “Doctor Forester,” said Lady Muriel, who had just joined us, “let me introduce to you my cousin Eric Lindon Captain Lindon, I should say.” Arthur shook off his ill-temper instantly and completely, as he rose and gave the young soldier his hand. “I have heard of you,” he said. “I'm very glad to make the acquaintance of Lady Muriel's cousin.” “Yes, that's all I'm distinguished for, as yet!” said Eric (so we soon got to call him) with a winning smile. “And I doubt,” glancing at Lady Muriel, “if it even amounts to a good-conduct-badge! But it's something to begin with.” “You must come to my father, Eric,” said Lady Muriel. “I think he's wandering among the ruins.” And the pair moved on. The gloomy look returned to Arthur's face: and I could see it was only to distract his thoughts that he took his place at the side of the metaphysical young lady, and resumed their interrupted discussion. “Talking of Herbert Spencer,” he began, “do you really find no logical difficulty in regarding Nature as a process of involution, passing from definite coherent homogeneity to indefinite incoherent heterogeneity?” Amused as I was at the ingenious jumble he had made of Spencer's words, I kept as grave a face as I could. “No physical difficulty,” she confidently replied: “but I haven't studied Logic much. Would you state the difficulty?” “Well,” said Arthur, “do you accept it as self-evident? Is it as obvious, for instance, as that 'things that are greater than the same are greater than one another'?” “To my mind,” she modestly replied, “it seems quite as obvious. I grasp both truths by intuition. But other minds may need some logical—I forget the technical terms.” “For a complete logical argument,” Arthur began with admirable solemnity, “we need two prim Misses—” “Of course!” she interrupted. “I remember that word now. And they produce—?” “A Delusion,” said Arthur. “Ye—es?” she said dubiously. “I don't seem to remember that so well. But what is the whole argument called?” “A Sillygism? “Ah, yes! I remember now. But I don't need a Sillygism, you know, to prove that mathematical axiom you mentioned.” “Nor to prove that 'all angles are equal', I suppose?” “Why, of course not! One takes such a simple truth as that for granted!” Here I ventured to interpose, and to offer her a plate of strawberries and cream. I felt really uneasy at the thought that she might detect the trick: and I contrived, unperceived by her, to shake my head reprovingly at the pseudo-philosopher. Equally unperceived by her, Arthur slightly raised his shoulders, and spread his hands abroad, as who should say “What else can I say to her?” and moved away, leaving her to discuss her strawberries by 'involution,' or any other way she preferred. By this time the carriages, that were to convey the revelers to their respective homes, had begun to assemble outside the Castle-grounds: and it became evident—now that Lady Muriel's cousin had joined our party that the problem, how to convey five people to Elveston, with a carriage that would only hold four, must somehow be solved. The Honorable Eric Lindon, who was at this moment walking up and down with Lady Muriel, might have solved it at once, no doubt, by announcing his intention of returning on foot. Of this solution there did not seem to be the very smallest probability. The next best solution, it seemed to me, was that I should walk home: and this I at once proposed. “You're sure you don't mind?” said the Earl. “I'm afraid the carriage wont take us all, and I don't like to suggest to Eric to desert his cousin so soon.” “So far from minding it,” I said, “I should prefer it. It will give me time to sketch this beautiful old ruin.” “I'll keep you company,” Arthur suddenly said. And, in answer to what I suppose was a look of surprise on my face, he said in a low voice, “I really would rather. I shall be quite de trop in the carriage!” “I think I'll walk too,” said the Earl. “You'll have to be content with Eric as your escort,” he added, to Lady Muriel, who had joined us while he was speaking. “You must be as entertaining as Cerberus—'three gentlemen rolled into one'—” Lady Muriel said to her companion. “It will be a grand military exploit!” “A sort of Forlorn Hope?” the Captain modestly suggested. “You do pay pretty compliments!” laughed his fair cousin. “Good day to you, gentlemen three—or rather deserters three!” And the two young folk entered the carriage and were driven away. “How long will your sketch take?” said Arthur. “Well,” I said, “I should like an hour for it. Don't you think you had better go without me? I'll return by train. I know there's one in about an hour's time.” “Perhaps that would be best,” said the Earl. “The Station is quite close.” So I was left to my own devices, and soon found a comfortable seat, at the foot of a tree, from which I had a good view of the ruins. “It is a very drowsy day,” I said to myself, idly turning over the leaves of the sketch-book to find a blank page. “Why, I thought you were a mile off by this time!” For, to my surprise, the two walkers were back again. “I came back to remind you,” Arthur said, “that the trains go every ten minutes—” “Nonsense!” I said. “It isn't the Metropolitan Railway!” “It is the Metropolitan Railway,” the Earl insisted. “'This is a part of Kensington.” “Why do you talk with your eyes shut?” said Arthur. “Wake up!” “I think it's the heat makes me so drowsy,” I said, hoping, but not feeling quite sure, that I was talking sense. “Am I awake now?” “I think not,” the Earl judicially pronounced. “What do you think, Doctor? He's only got one eye open!” “And he's snoring like anything!” cried Bruno. “Do wake up, you dear old thing!” And he and Sylvie set to work, rolling the heavy head from side to side, as if its connection with the shoulders was a matter of no sort of importance. And at last the Professor opened his eyes, and sat up, blinking at us with eyes of utter bewilderment. “Would you have the kindness to mention,” he said, addressing me with his usual old-fashioned courtesy, “whereabouts we are just now and who we are, beginning with me?” I thought it best to begin with the children. “This is Sylvie. Sir; and this is Bruno.” “Ah, yes! I know them well enough!” the old man murmured. “Its myself I'm most anxious about. And perhaps you'll be good enough to mention, at the same time, how I got here?” “A harder problem occurs to me,” I ventured to say: “and that is, how you're to get back again.” “True, true!” the Professor replied. “That's the Problem, no doubt. Viewed as a Problem, outside of oneself, it is a most interesting one. Viewed as a portion of one's own biography, it is, I must admit, very distressing!” He groaned, but instantly added, with a chuckle, “As to myself, I think you mentioned that I am—” “Oo're the Professor!” Bruno shouted in his ear. “Didn't oo know that? Oo've come from Outland! And it's ever so far away from here!” The Professor leapt to his feet with the agility of a boy. “Then there's no time to lose!” he exclaimed anxiously. “I'll just ask this guileless peasant, with his brace of buckets that contain (apparently) water, if he'll be so kind as to direct us. Guileless peasant!” he proceeded in a louder voice. “Would you tell us the way to Outland?” The guileless peasant turned with a sheepish grin. “Hey?” was all he said. “The way—to—Outland!” the Professor repeated. The guileless peasant set down his buckets and considered. “Ah dunnot—” “I ought to mention,” the Professor hastily put in, “that whatever you say will be used in evidence against you.” The guileless peasant instantly resumed his buckets. “Then ah says nowt!” he answered briskly, and walked away at a great pace. The children gazed sadly at the rapidly vanishing figure. “He goes very quick!” the Professor said with a sigh. “But I know that was the right thing to say. I've studied your English Laws. However, let's ask this next man that's coming. He is not guileless, and he is not a peasant—but I don't know that either point is of vital importance.” It was, in fact, the Honourable Eric Lindon, who had apparently fulfilled his task of escorting Lady Muriel home, and was now strolling leisurely up and down the road outside the house, enjoying; a solitary cigar. “Might I trouble you, Sir, to tell us the nearest way to Outland!” Oddity as he was, in outward appearance, the Professor was, in that essential nature which no outward disguise could conceal, a thorough gentleman. And, as such, Eric Lindon accepted him instantly. He took the cigar from his mouth, and delicately shook off the ash, while he considered. “The name sounds strange to me,” he said. “I doubt if I can help you?' “It is not very far from Fairyland,” the Professor suggested. Eric Lindon's eye-brows were slightly raised at these words, and an amused smile, which he courteously tried to repress, flitted across his handsome face: “A trifle cracked!” he muttered to himself. “But what a jolly old patriarch it is!” Then he turned to the children. “And ca'n't you help him, little folk?” he said, with a gentleness of tone that seemed to win their hearts at once. “Surely you know all about it? 'How many miles to Babylon?
    Three-score miles and ten.
    Can I get there by candlelight?
    Yes, and back again!'” To my surprise, Bruno ran forwards to him, as if he were some old friend of theirs, seized the disengaged hand and hung on to it with both of his own: and there stood this tall dignified officer in the middle of the road, gravely swinging a little boy to and fro, while Sylvie stood ready to push him, exactly as if a real swing had suddenly been provided for their pastime. “We don't want to get to Babylon, oo know!” Bruno explained as he swung. “And it isn't candlelight: it's daylight!” Sylvie added, giving the swing a push of extra vigour, which nearly took the whole machine off its balance. By this time it was clear to me that Eric Lindon was quite unconscious of my presence. Even the Professor and the children seemed to have lost sight of me: and I stood in the midst of the group, as unconcernedly as a ghost, seeing but unseen. “How perfectly isochronous!” the Professor exclaimed with enthusiasm. He had his watch in his hand, and was carefully counting Bruno's oscillations. “He measures time quite as accurately as a pendulum!” {Image...'How perfectly isochronous!'} “Yet even pendulums,” the good-natured young soldier observed, as he carefully released his hand from Bruno's grasp, “are not a joy for ever! Come, that's enough for one bout, little man!' Next time we meet, you shall have another. Meanwhile you'd better take this old gentleman to Queer Street, Number—” “We'll find it!” cried Bruno eagerly, as they dragged the Professor away. “We are much indebted to you!” the Professor said, looking over his shoulder. “Don't mention it!” replied the officer, raising his hat as a parting salute. “What number did you say!” the Professor called from the distance. The officer made a trumpet of his two hands. “Forty!” he shouted in stentorian tones. “And not piano, by any means!” he added to himself. “It's a mad world, my masters, a mad world!” He lit another cigar, and strolled on towards his hotel. “What a lovely evening!” I said, joining him as he passed me. “Lovely indeed,” he said. “Where did you come from? Dropped from the clouds?” “I'm strolling your way,” I said; and no further explanation seemed necessary. “Have a cigar?” “Thanks: I'm not a smoker.” “Is there a Lunatic Asylum near here?” “Not that I know of.” “Thought there might be. Met a lunatic just now. Queer old fish as ever I saw!” And so, in friendly chat, we took our homeward ways, and wished each other 'good-night' at the door of his hotel. Left to myself, I felt the 'eerie' feeling rush over me again, and saw, standing at the door of Number Forty, the three figures I knew so well. “Then it's the wrong house?” Bruno was saying. “No, no! It's the right house,” the Professor cheerfully replied: “but it's the wrong street. That's where we've made our mistake! Our best plan, now, will be to—” It was over. The street was empty, Commonplace life was around me, and the 'eerie' feeling had fled. 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. Lewis Carroll (1996). Sylvie and Bruno. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/620/pg620-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 , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

QUEER STREET, NUMBER FORTY

Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . A CHANGED CROCODILE here CHAPTER XVI. A CHANGED CROCODILE The Marvellous—the Mysterious—had quite passed out of my life for the moment: and the Common-place reigned supreme. I turned in the direction of the Earl's house, as it was now 'the witching hour' of five, and I knew I should find them ready for a cup of tea and a quiet chat. Lady Muriel and her father gave me a delightfully warm welcome. They were not of the folk we meet in fashionable drawing-rooms who conceal all such feelings as they may chance to possess beneath the impenetrable mask of a conventional placidity. 'The Man with the Iron Mask' was, no doubt, a rarity and a marvel in his own age: in modern London no one would turn his head to give him a second look! No, these were real people. When they looked pleased, it meant that they were pleased: and when Lady Muriel said, with a bright smile, “I'm very glad to see you again!”, I knew that it was true. Still I did not venture to disobey the injunctions—crazy as I felt them to be—of the lovesick young Doctor, by so much as alluding to his existence: and it was only after they had given me full details of a projected picnic, to which they invited me, that Lady Muriel exclaimed, almost as an after-thought, “and do, if you can, bring Doctor Forester with you! I'm sure a day in the country would do him good. I'm afraid he studies too much—” It was 'on the tip of my tongue' to quote the words “His only books are woman's looks!” but I checked myself just in time—with something of the feeling of one who has crossed a street, and has been all but run over by a passing 'Hansom.' “—and I think he has too lonely a life,” she went on, with a gentle earnestness that left no room whatever to suspect a double meaning. “Do get him to come! And don't forget the day, Tuesday week. We can drive you over. It would be a pity to go by rail——there is so much pretty scenery on the road. And our open carriage just holds four.” “Oh, I'll persuade him to come!” I said with confidence—thinking “it would take all my powers of persuasion to keep him away!” The picnic was to take place in ten days: and though Arthur readily accepted the invitation I brought him, nothing that I could say would induce him to call—either with me or without me on the Earl and his daughter in the meanwhile. No: he feared to “wear out his welcome,” he said: they had “seen enough of him for one while”: and, when at last the day for the expedition arrived, he was so childishly nervous and uneasy that I thought it best so to arrange our plans that we should go separately to the house—my intention being to arrive some time after him, so as to give him time to get over a meeting. With this object I purposely made a considerable circuit on my way to the Hall (as we called the Earl's house): “and if I could only manage to lose my way a bit,” I thought to myself, “that would suit me capitally!” In this I succeeded better, and sooner, than I had ventured to hope for. The path through the wood had been made familiar to me, by many a solitary stroll, in my former visit to Elveston; and how I could have so suddenly and so entirely lost it—even though I was so engrossed in thinking of Arthur and his lady-love that I heeded little else—was a mystery to me. “And this open place,” I said to myself, “seems to have some memory about it I cannot distinctly recall—surely it is the very spot where I saw those Fairy-Children! But I hope there are no snakes about!” I mused aloud, taking my seat on a fallen tree. “I certainly do not like snakes—and I don't suppose Bruno likes them, either!” “No, he doesn't like them!” said a demure little voice at my side. “He's not afraid of them, you know. But he doesn't like them. He says they're too waggly!” Words fail me to describe the beauty of the little group—couched on a patch of moss, on the trunk of the fallen tree, that met my eager gaze: Sylvie reclining with her elbow buried in the moss, and her rosy cheek resting in the palm of her hand, and Bruno stretched at her feet with his head in her lap. {Image...Fairies resting} “Too waggly?” was all I could say in so sudden an emergency. “I'm not praticular,” Bruno said, carelessly: “but I do like straight animals best—” “But you like a dog when it wags its tail,” Sylvie interrupted. “You know you do, Bruno!” “But there's more of a dog, isn't there, Mister Sir?” Bruno appealed to me. “You wouldn't like to have a dog if it hadn't got nuffin but a head and a tail?” I admitted that a dog of that kind would be uninteresting. “There isn't such a dog as that,” Sylvie thoughtfully remarked. “But there would be,” cried Bruno, “if the Professor shortened it up for us!” “Shortened it up?” I said. “That's something new. How does he do it?” “He's got a curious machine,” Sylvie was beginning to explain. “A welly curious machine,” Bruno broke in, not at all willing to have the story thus taken out of his mouth, “and if oo puts in—some-finoruvver—at one end, oo know and he turns the handle—and it comes out at the uvver end, oh, ever so short!” “As short as short!” Sylvie echoed. “And one day when we was in Outland, oo know—before we came to Fairyland me and Sylvie took him a big Crocodile. And he shortened it up for us. And it did look so funny! And it kept looking round, and saying 'wherever is the rest of me got to?' And then its eyes looked unhappy—” “Not both its eyes,” Sylvie interrupted. “Course not!” said the little fellow. “Only the eye that couldn't see wherever the rest of it had got to. But the eye that could see wherever—” “How short was the crocodile?” I asked, as the story was getting a little complicated. “Half as short again as when we caught it—so long,” said Bruno, spreading out his arms to their full stretch. I tried to calculate what this would come to, but it was too hard for me. Please make it out for me, dear Child who reads this! “But you didn't leave the poor thing so short as that, did you?” “Well, no. Sylvie and me took it back again and we got it stretched to—to—how much was it, Sylvie?” “Two times and a half, and a little bit more,” said Sylvie. “It wouldn't like that better than the other way, I'm afraid?” “Oh, but it did though!” Bruno put in eagerly. “It were proud of its new tail! Oo never saw a Crocodile so proud! Why, it could go round and walk on the top of its tail, and along its back, all the way to its head!” {Image...A changed crocodile} “Not quite all the way,” said Sylvie. “It couldn't, you know.” “Ah, but it did, once!” Bruno cried triumphantly. “Oo weren't looking—but I watched it. And it walked on tippiety-toe, so as it wouldn't wake itself, 'cause it thought it were asleep. And it got both its paws on its tail. And it walked and it walked all the way along its back. And it walked and it walked on its forehead. And it walked a tiny little way down its nose! There now!” This was a good deal worse than the last puzzle. Please, dear Child, help again! “I don't believe no Crocodile never walked along its own forehead!” Sylvie cried, too much excited by the controversy to limit the number of her negatives. “Oo don't know the reason why it did it!” Bruno scornfully retorted. “It had a welly good reason. I heerd it say 'Why shouldn't I walk on my own forehead?' So a course it did, oo know!” “If that's a good reason, Bruno,” I said, “why shouldn't you get up that tree?” “Shall, in a minute,” said Bruno: “soon as we've done talking. Only two peoples ca'n't talk comfably togevver, when one's getting up a tree, and the other isn't!” It appeared to me that a conversation would scarcely be 'comfable' while trees were being climbed, even if both the 'peoples' were doing it: but it was evidently dangerous to oppose any theory of Bruno's; so I thought it best to let the question drop, and to ask for an account of the machine that made things longer. This time Bruno was at a loss, and left it to Sylvie. “It's like a mangle,” she said: “if things are put in, they get squoze—” “Squeezeled!” Bruno interrupted. “Yes.” Sylvie accepted the correction, but did not attempt to pronounce the word, which was evidently new to her. “They get—like that—and they come out, oh, ever so long!” “Once,” Bruno began again, “Sylvie and me writed—” “Wrote!” Sylvie whispered. “Well, we wroted a Nursery-Song, and the Professor mangled it longer for us. It were 'There was a little Man, And he had a little gun, And the bullets—'” “I know the rest,” I interrupted. “But would you say it long I mean the way that it came out of the mangle?” “We'll get the Professor to sing it for you,” said Sylvie. “It would spoil it to say it.” “I would like to meet the Professor,” I said. “And I would like to take you all with me, to see some friends of mine, that live near here. Would you like to come?” “I don't think the Professor would like to come,” said Sylvie. “He's very shy. But we'd like it very much. Only we'd better not come this size, you know.” The difficulty had occurred to me already: and I had felt that perhaps there would be a slight awkwardness in introducing two such tiny friends into Society. “What size will you be?” I enquired. “We'd better come as—common children,” Sylvie thoughtfully replied. “That's the easiest size to manage.” “Could you come to-day?” I said, thinking “then we could have you at the picnic!” Sylvie considered a little. “Not to-day,” she replied. “We haven't got the things ready. We'll come on—Tuesday next, if you like. And now, really Bruno, you must come and do your lessons.” “I wiss oo wouldn't say 'really Bruno!'” the little fellow pleaded, with pouting lips that made him look prettier than ever. “It always show's there's something horrid coming! And I won't kiss you, if you're so unkind.” “Ah, but you have kissed me!” Sylvie exclaimed in merry triumph. “Well then, I'll unkiss you!” And he threw his arms round her neck for this novel, but apparently not very painful, operation. “It's very like kissing!” Sylvie remarked, as soon as her lips were again free for speech. “Oo don't know nuffin about it! It were just the conkery!” Bruno replied with much severity, as he marched away. Sylvie turned her laughing face to me. “Shall we come on Tuesday?” she said. “Very well,” I said: “let it be Tuesday next. But where is the Professor? Did he come with you to Fairyland?” “No,” said Sylvie. “But he promised he'd come and see us, some day. He's getting his Lecture ready. So he has to stay at home.” “At home?” I said dreamily, not feeling quite sure what she had said. “Yes, Sir. His Lordship and Lady Muriel are at home. Please to walk this way.” 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. Lewis Carroll (1996). Sylvie and Bruno. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/620/pg620-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 , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

A CHANGED CROCODILE

Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . A VISIT TO DOGLAND here CHAPTER XIII. A VISIT TO DOGLAND “There's a house, away there to the left,” said Sylvie, after we had walked what seemed to me about fifty miles. “Let's go and ask for a night's lodging.” “It looks a very comfable house,” Bruno said, as we turned into the road leading up to it. “I doos hope the Dogs will be kind to us, I is so tired and hungry!” A Mastiff, dressed in a scarlet collar, and carrying a musket, was pacing up and down, like a sentinel, in front of the entrance. He started, on catching sight of the children, and came forwards to meet them, keeping his musket pointed straight at Bruno, who stood quite still, though he turned pale and kept tight hold of Sylvie's hand, while the Sentinel walked solemnly round and round them, and looked at them from all points of view. {Image...The mastiff-sentinel} “Oobooh, hooh boohooyah!” He growled at last. “Woobah yahwah oobooh! Bow wahbah woobooyah? Bow wow?” he asked Bruno, severely. Of course Bruno understood all this, easily enough. All Fairies understand Doggee—-that is, Dog-language. But, as you may find it a little difficult, just at first, I had better put it into English for you. “Humans, I verily believe! A couple of stray Humans! What Dog do you belong to? What do you want?” “We don't belong to a Dog!” Bruno began, in Doggee. (“Peoples never belongs to Dogs!” he whispered to Sylvie.) But Sylvie hastily checked him, for fear of hurting the Mastiff's feelings. “Please, we want a little food, and a night's lodging—if there's room in the house,” she added timidly. Sylvie spoke Doggee very prettily: but I think it's almost better, for you, to give the conversation in English. “The house, indeed!” growled the Sentinel. “Have you never seen a Palace in your life? Come along with me! His Majesty must settle what's to be done with you.” They followed him through the entrance-hall, down a long passage, and into a magnificent Saloon, around which were grouped dogs of all sorts and sizes. Two splendid Blood-hounds were solemnly sitting up, one on each side of the crown-bearer. Two or three Bull-dogs—-whom I guessed to be the Body-Guard of the King—were waiting in grim silence: in fact the only voices at all plainly audible were those of two little dogs, who had mounted a settee, and were holding a lively discussion that looked very like a quarrel. “Lords and Ladies in Waiting, and various Court Officials,” our guide gruffly remarked, as he led us in. Of me the Courtiers took no notice whatever: but Sylvie and Bruno were the subject of many inquisitive looks, and many whispered remarks, of which I only distinctly caught one—made by a sly-looking Dachshund to his friend “Bah wooh wahyah hoobah Oobooh, hah bah?” (“She's not such a bad-looking Human, is she?”) Leaving the new arrivals in the centre of the Saloon, the Sentinel advanced to a door, at the further end of it, which bore an inscription, painted on it in Doggee, “Royal Kennel—scratch and Yell.” Before doing this, the Sentinel turned to the children, and said “Give me your names.” “We'd rather not!” Bruno exclaimed, pulling' Sylvie away from the door. “We want them ourselves. Come back, Sylvie! Come quick!” “Nonsense!” said Sylvie very decidedly: and gave their names in Doggee. Then the Sentinel scratched violently at the door, and gave a yell that made Bruno shiver from head to foot. “Hooyah wah!” said a deep voice inside. (That's Doggee for “Come in!”) “It's the King himself!” the Mastiff whispered in an awestruck tone. “Take off your wigs, and lay them humbly at his paws.” (What we should call “at his feet.”) Sylvie was just going to explain, very politely, that really they couldn't perform that ceremony, because their wigs wouldn't come off, when the door of the Royal Kennel opened, and an enormous Newfoundland Dog put his head out. “Bow wow?” was his first question. “When His Majesty speaks to you,” the Sentinel hastily whispered to Bruno, “you should prick up your ears!” Bruno looked doubtfully at Sylvie. “I'd rather not, please,” he said. “It would hurt.” {Image...The dog-king} “It doesn't hurt a bit!” the Sentinel said with some indignation. “Look! It's like this!” And he pricked up his ears like two railway signals. Sylvie gently explained matters. “I'm afraid we ca'n't manage it,” she said in a low voice. “I'm very sorry: but our ears haven't got the right—” she wanted to say “machinery” in Doggee: but she had forgotten the word, and could only think of “steam-engine.” The Sentinel repeated Sylvie's explanation to the King. “Can't prick up their ears without a steam-engine!” His Majesty exclaimed. “They must be curious creatures! I must have a look at them!” And he came out of his Kennel, and walked solemnly up to the children. What was the amazement—nor to say the horror of the whole assembly, when Sylvie actually patted His Majesty on the head, while Bruno seized his long ears and pretended to tie them together under his chin! The Sentinel groaned aloud: a beautiful Greyhound who appeared to be one of the Ladies in Waiting—fainted away: and all the other Courtiers hastily drew back, and left plenty of room for the huge Newfoundland to spring upon the audacious strangers, and tear them limb from limb. Only—he didn't. On the contrary his Majesty actually smiled so far as a Dog can smile—and (the other Dogs couldn't believe their eyes, but it was true, all the same) his Majesty wagged his tail! “Yah! Hooh hahwooh!” (that is “Well! I never!”) was the universal cry. His Majesty looked round him severely, and gave a slight growl, which produced instant silence. “Conduct my friends to the banqueting-hall!” he said, laying such an emphasis on “my friends” that several of the dogs rolled over helplessly on their backs and began to lick Bruno's feet. A procession was formed, but I only ventured to follow as far as the door of the banqueting-hall, so furious was the uproar of barking dogs within. So I sat down by the King, who seemed to have gone to sleep, and waited till the children returned to say good-night, when His Majesty got up and shook himself. “Time for bed!” he said with a sleepy yawn. “The attendants will show you your room,” he added, aside, to Sylvie and Bruno. “Bring lights!” And, with a dignified air, he held out his paw for them to kiss. But the children were evidently not well practised in Court-manners. Sylvie simply stroked the great paw: Bruno hugged it: the Master of the Ceremonies looked shocked. All this time Dog-waiters, in splendid livery, were running up with lighted candles: but, as fast as they put them upon the table, other waiters ran away with them, so that there never seemed to be one for me, though the Master kept nudging me with his elbow, and repeating, “I ca'n't let you sleep here! You're not in bed, you know!” I made a great effort, and just succeeded in getting out the words “I know I'm not. I'm in an arm-chair.” “Well, forty winks will do you no harm,” the Master said, and left me. I could scarcely hear his words: and no wonder: he was leaning over the side of a ship, that was miles away from the pier on which I stood. The ship passed over the horizon and I sank back into the arm-chair. The next thing I remember is that it was morning: breakfast was just over: Sylvie was lifting Bruno down from a high chair, and saying to a Spaniel, who was regarding them with a most benevolent smile, “Yes, thank you we've had a very nice breakfast. Haven't we, Bruno?” “There was too many bones in the”—Bruno began, but Sylvie frowned at him, and laid her finger on her lips, for, at this moment, the travelers were waited on by a very dignified officer, the Head-Growler, whose duty it was, first to conduct them to the King to bid him farewell and then to escort them to the boundary of Dogland. The great Newfoundland received them most affably but instead of saying “good-bye” he startled the Head-growler into giving three savage growls, by announcing that he would escort them himself. It is a most unusual proceeding, your Majesty! the Head-Growler exclaimed, almost choking with vexation at being set aside, for he had put on his best Court-suit, made entirely of cat-skins, for the occasion. “I shall escort them myself,” his Majesty repeated, gently but firmly, laying aside the Royal robes, and changing his crown for a small coronet, “and you may stay at home.” “I are glad!” Bruno whispered to Sylvie, when they had got well out of hearing. “He were so welly cross!” And he not only patted their Royal escort, but even hugged him round the neck in the exuberance of his delight. His Majesty calmly wagged the Royal tail. “It's quite a relief,” he said, “getting away from that Palace now and then! Royal Dogs have a dull life of it, I can tell you! Would you mind” (this to Sylvie, in a low voice, and looking a little shy and embarrassed) “would you mind the trouble of just throwing that stick for me to fetch?” Sylvie was too much astonished to do anything for a moment: it sounded such a monstrous impossibility that a King should wish to run after a stick. But Bruno was equal to the occasion, and with a glad shout of “Hi then! Fetch it, good Doggie!” he hurled it over a clump of bushes. The next moment the Monarch of Dogland had bounded over the bushes, and picked up the stick, and came galloping back to the children with it in his mouth. Bruno took it from him with great decision. “Beg for it!” he insisted; and His Majesty begged. “Paw!” commanded Sylvie; and His Majesty gave his paw. In short, the solemn ceremony of escorting the travelers to the boundaries of Dogland became one long uproarious game of play! “But business is business!” the Dog-King said at last. “And I must go back to mine. I couldn't come any further,” he added, consulting a dog-watch, which hung on a chain round his neck, “not even if there were a Cat insight!” They took an affectionate farewell of His Majesty, and trudged on. “That were a dear dog!” Bruno exclaimed. “Has we to go far, Sylvie? I's tired!” “Not much further, darling!” Sylvie gently replied. “Do you see that shining, just beyond those trees? I'm almost sure it's the gate of Fairyland! I know it's all golden—Father told me so and so bright, so bright!” she went on dreamily. “It dazzles!” said Bruno, shading his eyes with one little hand, while the other clung tightly to Sylvie's hand, as if he were half-alarmed at her strange manner. For the child moved on as if walking in her sleep, her large eyes gazing into the far distance, and her breath coming and going in quick pantings of eager delight. I knew, by some mysterious mental light, that a great change was taking place in my sweet little friend (for such I loved to think her) and that she was passing from the condition of a mere Outland Sprite into the true Fairy-nature. Upon Bruno the change came later: but it was completed in both before they reached the golden gate, through which I knew it would be impossible for me to follow. I could but stand outside, and take a last look at the two sweet children, ere they disappeared within, and the golden gate closed with a bang. And with such a bang! “It never will shut like any other cupboard-door,” Arthur explained. “There's something wrong with the hinge. However, here's the cake and wine. And you've had your forty winks. So you really must get off to bed, old man! You're fit for nothing else. Witness my hand, Arthur Forester, M.D.” By this time I was wide-awake again. “Not quite yet!” I pleaded. “Really I'm not sleepy now. And it isn't midnight yet.” “Well, I did want to say another word to you,” Arthur replied in a relenting tone, as he supplied me with the supper he had prescribed. “Only I thought you were too sleepy for it to-night.” We took our midnight meal almost in silence; for an unusual nervousness seemed to have seized on my old friend. “What kind of a night is it?” he asked, rising and undrawing the window-curtains, apparently to change the subject for a minute. I followed him to the window, and we stood together, looking out, in silence. “When I first spoke to you about—” Arthur began, after a long and embarrassing silence, “that is, when we first talked about her—for I think it was you that introduced the subject—my own position in life forbade me to do more than worship her from a distance: and I was turning over plans for leaving this place finally, and settling somewhere out of all chance of meeting her again. That seemed to be my only chance of usefulness in life.” “Would that have been wise?” I said. “To leave yourself no hope at all?” “There was no hope to leave,” Arthur firmly replied, though his eyes glittered with tears as he gazed upwards into the midnight sky, from which one solitary star, the glorious 'Vega,' blazed out in fitful splendour through the driving clouds. “She was like that star to me—bright, beautiful, and pure, but out of reach, out of reach!” He drew the curtains again, and we returned to our places by the fireside. “What I wanted to tell you was this,” he resumed. “I heard this evening from my solicitor. I can't go into the details of the business, but the upshot is that my worldly wealth is much more than I thought, and I am (or shall soon be) in a position to offer marriage, without imprudence, to any lady, even if she brought nothing. I doubt if there would be anything on her side: the Earl is poor, I believe. But I should have enough for both, even if health failed.” “I wish you all happiness in your married life!” I cried. “Shall you speak to the Earl to-morrow?” “Not yet awhile,” said Arthur. “He is very friendly, but I dare not think he means more than that, as yet. And as for—as for Lady Muriel, try as I may, I cannot read her feelings towards me. If there is love, she is hiding it! No, I must wait, I must wait!” I did not like to press any further advice on my friend, whose judgment, I felt, was so much more sober and thoughtful than my own; and we parted without more words on the subject that had now absorbed his thoughts, nay, his very life. The next morning a letter from my solicitor arrived, summoning me to town on important business. 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. Lewis Carroll (1996). Sylvie and Bruno. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/620/pg620-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 , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

A VISIT TO DOGLAND

Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . L'AMIE INCONNUE here CHAPTER II. L'AMIE INCONNUE As we entered the breakfast-saloon, the Professor was saying “—and he had breakfast by himself, early: so he begged you wouldn't wait for him, my Lady. This way, my Lady,” he added, “this way!” And then, with (as it seemed to me) most superfluous politeness, he flung open the door of my compartment, and ushered in “—a young and lovely lady!” I muttered to myself with some bitterness. “And this is, of course, the opening scene of Vol. I. She is the Heroine. And I am one of those subordinate characters that only turn up when needed for the development of her destiny, and whose final appearance is outside the church, waiting to greet the Happy Pair!” “Yes, my Lady, change at Fayfield,” were the next words I heard (oh that too obsequious Guard!), “next station but one.” And the door closed, and the lady settled down into her corner, and the monotonous throb of the engine (making one feel as if the train were some gigantic monster, whose very circulation we could feel) proclaimed that we were once more speeding on our way. “The lady had a perfectly formed nose,” I caught myself saying to myself, “hazel eyes, and lips—” and here it occurred to me that to see, for myself, what “the lady” was really like, would be more satisfactory than much speculation. I looked round cautiously, and—was entirely disappointed of my hope. The veil, which shrouded her whole face, was too thick for me to see more than the glitter of bright eyes and the hazy outline of what might be a lovely oval face, but might also, unfortunately, be an equally unlovely one. I closed my eyes again, saying to myself “—couldn't have a better chance for an experiment in Telepathy! I'll think out her face, and afterwards test the portrait with the original.” At first, no result at all crowned my efforts, though I 'divided my swift mind,' now hither, now thither, in a way that I felt sure would have made AEneas green with envy: but the dimly-seen oval remained as provokingly blank as ever—a mere Ellipse, as if in some mathematical diagram, without even the Foci that might be made to do duty as a nose and a mouth. Gradually, however, the conviction came upon me that I could, by a certain concentration of thought, think the veil away, and so get a glimpse of the mysterious face—as to which the two questions, “is she pretty?” and “is she plain?”, still hung suspended, in my mind, in beautiful equipoise. Success was partial—and fitful—still there was a result: ever and anon, the veil seemed to vanish, in a sudden flash of light: but, before I could fully realise the face, all was dark again. In each such glimpse, the face seemed to grow more childish and more innocent: and, when I had at last thought the veil entirely away, it was, unmistakeably, the sweet face of little Sylvie! “So, either I've been dreaming about Sylvie,” I said to myself, “and this is the reality. Or else I've really been with Sylvie, and this is a dream! Is Life itself a dream, I wonder?” To occupy the time, I got out the letter, which had caused me to take this sudden railway-journey from my London home down to a strange fishing-town on the North coast, and read it over again:— “DEAR OLD FRIEND,

    “I'm sure it will be as great a pleasure to me, as it can possibly
    be to you, to meet once more after so many years: and of course I
    shall be ready to give you all the benefit of such medical skill as
    I have: only, you know, one mustn't violate professional etiquette!
    And you are already in the hands of a first-rate London doctor,
    with whom it would be utter affectation for me to pretend to compete.
    (I make no doubt he is right in saying the heart is affected:
    all your symptoms point that way.) One thing, at any rate, I have
    already done in my doctorial capacity—secured you a bedroom on the
    ground-floor, so that you will not need to ascend the stairs at all.

    “I shalt expect you by last train on Friday, in accordance with your
    letter: and, till then, I shalt say, in the words of the old song,
    'Oh for Friday nicht!  Friday's lang a-coming!'

    “Yours always,

    “ARTHUR FORESTER.

    “P.S.  Do you believe in Fate?” This Postscript puzzled me sorely. “He is far too sensible a man,” I thought, “to have become a Fatalist. And yet what else can he mean by it?” And, as I folded up the letter and put it away, I inadvertently repeated the words aloud. “Do you believe in Fate?” The fair 'Incognita' turned her head quickly at the sudden question. “No, I don't!” she said with a smile. “Do you?” “I—I didn't mean to ask the question!” I stammered, a little taken aback at having begun a conversation in so unconventional a fashion. The lady's smile became a laugh—not a mocking laugh, but the laugh of a happy child who is perfectly at her ease. “Didn't you?” she said. “Then it was a case of what you Doctors call 'unconscious cerebration'?” “I am no Doctor,” I replied. “Do I look so like one? Or what makes you think it?” She pointed to the book I had been reading, which was so lying that its title, “Diseases of the Heart,” was plainly visible. “One needn't be a Doctor,” I said, “to take an interest in medical books. There's another class of readers, who are yet more deeply interested—” “You mean the Patients?” she interrupted, while a look of tender pity gave new sweetness to her face. “But,” with an evident wish to avoid a possibly painful topic, “one needn't be either, to take an interest in books of Science. Which contain the greatest amount of Science, do you think, the books, or the minds?” “Rather a profound question for a lady!” I said to myself, holding, with the conceit so natural to Man, that Woman's intellect is essentially shallow. And I considered a minute before replying. “If you mean living minds, I don't think it's possible to decide. There is so much written Science that no living person has ever read: and there is so much thought-out Science that hasn't yet been written. But, if you mean the whole human race, then I think the minds have it: everything, recorded in books, must have once been in some mind, you know.” “Isn't that rather like one of the Rules in Algebra?” my Lady enquired. (“Algebra too!” I thought with increasing wonder.) “I mean, if we consider thoughts as factors, may we not say that the Least Common Multiple of all the minds contains that of all the books; but not the other way?” “Certainly we may!” I replied, delighted with the illustration. “And what a grand thing it would be,” I went on dreamily, thinking aloud rather than talking, “if we could only apply that Rule to books! You know, in finding the Least Common Multiple, we strike out a quantity wherever it occurs, except in the term where it is raised to its highest power. So we should have to erase every recorded thought, except in the sentence where it is expressed with the greatest intensity.” My Lady laughed merrily. “Some books would be reduced to blank paper, I'm afraid!” she said. “They would. Most libraries would be terribly diminished in bulk. But just think what they would gain in quality!” “When will it be done?” she eagerly asked. “If there's any chance of it in my time, I think I'll leave off reading, and wait for it!” “Well, perhaps in another thousand years or so—” “Then there's no use waiting!”, said my Lady. “Let's sit down. Uggug, my pet, come and sit by me!” “Anywhere but by me!” growled the Sub-warden. “The little wretch always manages to upset his coffee!” I guessed at once (as perhaps the reader will also have guessed, if, like myself, he is very clever at drawing conclusions) that my Lady was the Sub-Warden's wife, and that Uggug (a hideous fat boy, about the same age as Sylvie, with the expression of a prize-pig) was their son. Sylvie and Bruno, with the Lord Chancellor, made up a party of seven. {Image...A portable plunge-bath} “And you actually got a plunge-bath every morning?” said the Sub-Warden, seemingly in continuation of a conversation with the Professor. “Even at the little roadside-inns?” “Oh, certainly, certainly!” the Professor replied with a smile on his jolly face. “Allow me to explain. It is, in fact, a very simple problem in Hydrodynamics. (That means a combination of Water and Strength.) If we take a plunge-bath, and a man of great strength (such as myself) about to plunge into it, we have a perfect example of this science. I am bound to admit,” the Professor continued, in a lower tone and with downcast eyes, “that we need a man of remarkable strength. He must be able to spring from the floor to about twice his own height, gradually turning over as he rises, so as to come down again head first.” “Why, you need a flea, not a man!” exclaimed the Sub-Warden. “Pardon me,” said the Professor. “This particular kind of bath is not adapted for a flea. Let us suppose,” he continued, folding his table-napkin into a graceful festoon, “that this represents what is perhaps the necessity of this Age—the Active Tourist's Portable Bath. You may describe it briefly, if you like,” looking at the Chancellor, “by the letters A.T.P.B.” The Chancellor, much disconcerted at finding everybody looking at him, could only murmur, in a shy whisper, “Precisely so!” “One great advantage of this plunge-bath,” continued the Professor, “is that it requires only half-a-gallon of water—” “I don't call it a plunge-bath,” His Sub-Excellency remarked, “unless your Active Tourist goes right under!” “But he does go right under,” the old man gently replied. “The A.T. hangs up the P. B. on a nail—thus. He then empties the water-jug into it—places the empty jug below the bag—leaps into the air—descends head-first into the bag—the water rises round him to the top of the bag—and there you are!” he triumphantly concluded. “The A.T. is as much under water as if he'd gone a mile or two down into the Atlantic!” “And he's drowned, let us say, in about four minutes—” “By no means!” the Professor answered with a proud smile. “After about a minute, he quietly turns a tap at the lower end of the P. B.—all the water runs back into the jug and there you are again!” “But how in the world is he to get out of the bag again?” “That, I take it,” said the Professor, “is the most beautiful part of the whole invention. All the way up the P.B., inside, are loops for the thumbs; so it's something like going up-stairs, only perhaps less comfortable; and, by the time the A. T. has risen out of the bag, all but his head, he's sure to topple over, one way or the other—the Law of Gravity secures that. And there he is on the floor again!” “A little bruised, perhaps?” “Well, yes, a little bruised; but having had his plunge-bath: that's the great thing.” “Wonderful! It's almost beyond belief!” murmured the Sub-Warden. The Professor took it as a compliment, and bowed with a gratified smile. “Quite beyond belief!” my Lady added—meaning, no doubt, to be more complimentary still. The Professor bowed, but he didn't smile this time. “I can assure you,” he said earnestly, “that, provided the bath was made, I used it every morning. I certainly ordered it—that I am clear about—my only doubt is, whether the man ever finished making it. It's difficult to remember, after so many years—” At this moment the door, very slowly and creakingly, began to open, and Sylvie and Bruno jumped up, and ran to meet the well-known footstep. 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. Lewis Carroll (1996). Sylvie and Bruno. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/620/pg620-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 , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

L'AMIE INCONNUE

Inside Earth: The Journey of Conru

The Story-book of Science by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE BIG EATERS CHAPTER XXII. THE BIG EATERS “INSECTS propagate themselves by eggs, which they lay, with admirable foresight, where the young will be sure to find nourishment. The little creature that comes from the egg is a larva, a feeble grub, which, most often, has to shift for itself, procure at its own risk food and shelter—the most difficult thing in this world. In these painful beginnings it cannot expect any help from its mother, dead some time before; for in insect life the parents generally die before the hatching of the eggs that produce the young. Without delay the little larva sets to work. It eats. It is its sole business, and a serious one, on which its future depends. It eats, not only to keep up its strength from day to day, but above all to acquire the plumpness necessary for its future metamorphosis. I must tell you—and this perhaps will surprise you—that an insect ceases to grow after attaining its final perfect form. It is known, too, that there are insects—among others, the butterfly of the silkworm—that do not take any nourishment at all. “A cat is at first a tiny little pink-nosed creature, so small that it could rest in the hollow of the hand. In one or two months it is a pretty kitten that amuses itself at a mere nothing, and with its nimble paw whips the wisp of paper that one throws before it. Another year, and it is a tom-cat that patiently watches for mice or joins battle with its rivals on the roof. But, whether a tiny creature hardly able to open its little blue eyes, or a pretty playful kitten, or a big quarrelsome tom-cat, it has always the form of a cat. “It is otherwise with insects. The swallow-tail, under its form of butterfly, is not first small, then medium, then large. When, for the first time, it opens its wings and takes flight, it is as large as it ever will be. When it comes out from under ground, where it lived as a grub, when for the first time it appears in the daylight, the June bug is such as you know it. There are little cats, but no little swallow-tails nor little June bugs. After the metamorphosis, an insect is what it will be to the end.” “But I have seen small June bugs flying round the willows in the evening,” objected Jules. “Those little June bugs are of a different kind. They will always remain the same. Never will they grow and become common June bugs, any more than a cat would grow into a tiger, which it resembles so much. “The grub alone grows. At first very small on coming out of the egg, little by little it acquires a size in conformity with the future insect. It gathers the materials that the metamorphosis will use,—materials for the wings, antennæ, legs, and all those things that the larva does not have, but that the insect must have. Out of what will the big green worm that lives in dead wood, and must some day become a stag-beetle, make the enormous branched mandibles and the robust horny covering of the perfect insect? Of what will the larva make the long antennæ of the capricorn? Of what will the caterpillar make the large wings of the swallow-tail? Of that which the caterpillar, larva, and worm amass now, with thrifty hoarding of life-supporting matter. “If the little pink-nosed cat were born without ears, paws, tail, fur, mustaches, if it were simply a little ball of flesh, and should some day have to acquire all at once, while asleep, ears, paws, tail, fur, mustaches, and many other things, is it not true that this work of life would necessitate materials gathered together beforehand and held in reserve in the fatty tissues of the animal? No thing can be made from nothing; the smallest hair of the cat’s mustache shoots forth at the expense of the substance of the animal, substance which it acquires by eating. Goat Moth “The larva is in precisely this case: it has nothing, or next to nothing, that the perfect insects must have. It must therefore amass, in view of future changes, materials for the change; it must eat for two: for itself first, and then for the insect that will come from its substance, transformed and, in a sense, recast. So the larvæ are endowed with an incomparable appetite. As I have said, to eat is their sole business. They eat night and day, often without stopping, without taking breath. To lose a mouthful, what imprudence! The future butterfly would perhaps have one scale less to its wings. So they eat gluttonously, take on a stomach, become big, fat, plump. It is the duty of larvæ. “Some attack plants; they browse on the leaves, chew the flowers, bite the flesh of fruit. Others have a stomach strong enough to digest wood; they hollow out galleries in the tree-trunks, file off, grate, pulverize the hardest oak, as well as the tender willow. Others, again, prefer decomposed animal matter; they haunt infected corpses, fill their stomachs with rottenness. Still others seek excrement and feast on filth. They are all scavengers on whom has developed the high mission of cleansing the earth of its pollution. You would sicken at the mere thought of these worms that swarm in pus; yet one of the most important services, a providential service, is rendered by these disgusting eaters which clear away infection and give back its constituent elements to life. As if to make amends for its filthy needs, one of these larvæ will later be a magnificent fly, rivaling polished bronze in its brilliancy; another, a beetle perfumed with musk, its rich coat vying with gold and precious stones in splendor. Phylloxera “But these larvæ devoted to the work of general sanitation cannot make us forget other eaters, of whom we are victims. The grubs of the June bug alone sometimes multiply so rapidly in the ground that immense tracts are denuded of vegetation, which is gnawed at the roots. The forester’s shrubs, the farmer’s harvests, the gardener’s plants, just when everything seems prosperous, some fine morning, hang withered, smitten to death. The worm has passed that way, and all is lost. Fire could not have committed more frightful ravages. A miserable yellow louse, hardly visible, lives under ground, where it attacks the roots of the grape vine. It is called phylloxera. Its calamitous breed threatens to destroy all our vineyards. Some grubs, small enough to lodge in a grain of wheat, ravage the wheat in our granaries and leave only the bran. Others browse the lucerne so that the mower finds nothing left. Others, for years, gnaw at the heart of the wood of the oak, poplar, pine, and divers, other large trees. Others, which turn into those little white butterflies flying around the lamp in the evening and called moths, eat our cloth stuffs bit by bit, and finish by reducing them to rags. Others attack wainscoting, old furniture, and reduce them to powder. Others—But I should never get through if I were to tell you all. This little people to which we often disdain to pay the slightest attention, this little race of insects, is so powerful on account of the robust appetite of its larvæ, that man ought seriously to reckon with it. If a certain grub succeeds in multiplying beyond measure, whole provinces are threatened with the tragic fate of starvation. And we are left in perfect ignorance on the subject of these devourers! How can you defend yourself if the enemy is unknown to you? Ah, if I only had the management of these things! As for you, my dear children, while waiting for our talks to be resumed with more detail concerning these ravagers, remember this: the larvæ of insects are the great eaters of this world, the providential demolishers that finish the work of death and thus prepare for the work of life, since everything, or nearly everything passes through their stomach.” 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 (2018). The Story-book of Science. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/56795/pg56795-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 BIG EATERS

THE PINE PROCESSIONARY: THE STINGING POWER

The Life of the Grasshopper by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE WHITE-FACED DECTICUS: THE LAYING AND THE HATCHING OF THE EGGS CHAPTER XII. THE WHITE-FACED DECTICUS: THE LAYING AND THE HATCHING OF THE EGGS The White-faced Decticus is an African insect that in France hardly ventures beyond the borders of Provence and Languedoc. She wants the sun that ripens the olives. Can it be that a high temperature acts as a stimulus to her matrimonial eccentricities, or are we to look upon these as family customs, independent of climate? Do things happen under frosty skies just as they do under a burning sun? I go for my information to another Decticus, the Alpine Analota (A. alpina, Yersin), who inhabits the high ridges of Mont Ventoux, which are covered with snow for half the year. Many a time, during my old botanical expeditions, I had noticed the portly insect hopping among the stones from one bit of turf to the next. This time, I do not go in search of it: it reaches me by post. Following my indications, an obliging forester climbs up there twice in the first fortnight of August and brings me back the wherewithal to fill a cage comfortably. 1 2 In shape and colouring it is a curious specimen of the Grasshopper family. Satin-white underneath, it has the upper part sometimes olive-black, sometimes bright-green or pale-brown. The organs of flight are reduced to mere vestiges. The female has as wing-cases two short white scales, some distance apart; the male shelters under the edge of his corselet two little concave plates, also white, but laid one on top of the other, the left on the right. These two tiny cupolas, with bow and sounding-board, rather suggest, on a smaller scale, the musical instrument of the Ephippiger, whom the mountain insect resembles to some extent in general appearance. I do not know what sort of tune cymbals so small as these can produce. I do not remember ever hearing them in their native [ ]haunts; and three months’ home breeding gives me no further information in this respect. Though they lead a joyous life, my captives are always dumb. 233 The exiles do not seem greatly to regret their cold peaks, among the orange poppies and saxifrages of arctic climes. What used they to browse upon up there? The Alpine meadow-grass, Mont-Cenis violets, Allioni’s bell-flower? I do not know. In the absence of Alpine grasses, I give them the common endive from my garden. They accept it without hesitation. They also accept such Locusts as can offer only a feeble resistance; and the diet alternates between animal and vegetable fare. They even practise cannibalism. If one of my Alpine visitors limps and drags a leg, the others eat him up. So far I have seen nothing striking: these are the usual Grasshopper manners. The interesting sight is the pairing, which occurs suddenly, without any prelude. The meeting takes place sometimes on the ground, sometimes on the wirework of the cage. In the latter case, the sword-bearer, firmly hooked to the trellis, supports the whole weight of the couple. The other is back [ ]downwards, his head pointing to his mate’s tail. With his long, fleshy-shanked hind-legs, he gets a grip of her sides; with his four front legs, often also with his mandibles, he grasps and squeezes the sabre, which projects slantwise. Thus hanging to this sort of greased pole, he operates in space. 234 When the meeting takes place on the ground, the couple occupy the same position, only the male is lying on his back in the sand. In both cases the result is an opal grain which, in the visible part of it, resembles in shape and size the swollen end of a grape-pip. As soon as this object is in position, the male decamps at full speed. Can he be in danger? Possibly, to judge from what I have seen. I admit that I have seen it only once. The bride in this case was grappling with two rivals. One of them, hanging to the sabre, was at work in due form behind; the other, in front, tightly clawed and with his belly ripped open, was waving his limbs in vain protest against the harpy crunching him impassively in small mouthfuls. I had before my eyes, under even more atrocious conditions, the horrors which the Praying Mantis had shown me in the old days: unbridled [ ]rut; carnage and voluptuousness in one; a reminiscence perhaps of ancient savagery. 235 As a rule, the male, a dwarf by comparison with the female, hastens to run away as soon as his task is consummated. The deserted one makes no movement. Then, after waiting twenty minutes or so, she curves herself into a ring and proceeds to enjoy the final banquet. She pulls the sticky raisin-pip into shreds which are chewed with grave appreciation and then gulped down. It takes her more than an hour to swallow the thing. When not a crumb remains, she descends from the wire gauze and mingles with the herd. Her eggs will be laid in a day or two. The proof is established. The matrimonial habits of the White-faced Decticus are not an exception due to the heat of the climate: the Grasshopper from the cold peaks shares them and surpasses them. We will return to the big Decticus with the ivory face. The laying follows close upon the strange events which we have described. It is done piecemeal, as the ovaries ripen. Firmly planted on her six legs, the mother bends her abdomen into a semicircle and drives her sabre perpendicularly into the [ ]soil, which, consisting in my cages of sifted earth, presents no serious resistance. The ovipositor therefore descends without hesitation and enters up to the hilt, that is to say, to a depth of about an inch. 236 For nearly fifteen minutes, absolute immobility. This is the time when the eggs are being laid. At last the sabre comes up a little way and the abdomen swings briskly from side to side, communicating an alternate transversal movement to the implement. This tends to scrape out and widen the sunken hole; it also has the effect of releasing from the walls earthy materials which fill up the bottom of the cavity. Thereupon the ovipositor, which is half in and half out, rams down this dust. It comes up a short distance and then dips repeatedly, with a sudden, jerky movement. We should work in the same way with a stick to ram down the earth in a perpendicular hole. Thus alternating the transversal swing of the sabre with the blows of the rammer, the mother covers up the well pretty quickly. The external traces of the work have still to be done away with. The insect’s legs, which I expected to see brought into play, remain inactive and keep the position [ ]adopted for laying the eggs. The sabre alone scratches, sweeps and smooths the ground with its point, very clumsily, it must be admitted. 237 Now all is in order. The abdomen and the ovipositor are restored to their normal positions. The mother allows herself a moment’s rest and goes to take a turn in the neighbourhood. Soon she comes back to the site where she has already laid her eggs and, very near the original spot, which she recognizes clearly, she drives in her tool afresh. The same proceedings as before are repeated. Follow another rest, another exploration of the vicinity, another return to the place already sown. For the third time the pointed stake descends, only a very slight distance away from the previous hole. During the brief hour that I am watching her, I see her resume her laying five times, after breaking off to take a little stroll in the neighbourhood; and the points selected are always very close together. On the following days, at varying intervals, the sowing is renewed for a certain number of times which I am not able to state exactly. In the case of each of these partial [ ]layings, the site changes, now here, now there, as this or that spot is deemed the more propitious. 238 When everything is finished, I examine the little pits in which the Decticus placed her eggs. There are no packets in a foamy sheath, such as the Locust supplies; no cells either. The eggs lie singly, without any protection. I gather three score as the total product of one mother. They are of a pale lilac-grey and are drawn out shuttlewise, in a narrow ellipsoid five or six millimetres long. 3 The same isolation marks those of the Grey Decticus, which are black; those of the Vine Ephippiger, which are ashen-grey; and those of the Alpine Analota, which are pale-lilac. The eggs of the Green Grasshopper, which are a very dark olive-brown and, like those of the White-faced Decticus, about sixty in number, are sometimes arranged singly and sometimes stuck together in little clusters. These different examples show us that the Grasshoppers plant with a dibble. Instead of packing their seeds in little casks of hardened foam, like the Locusts, they put [ ]them into the earth one by one or in very small clusters. 239 The hatching is worth examination; I will explain why presently. I therefore gather plenty of eggs of the big Decticus at the end of August and place them in a small glass jar with a layer of sand. Without undergoing any apparent modification, they spend eight months here under cover, sheltered from the frosts, the showers and the overpowering heat of the sun that would await them under natural conditions. When June comes, I often meet young Dectici in the fields. Some are already half their adult size, which is evidence of an early appearance dating back to the first fine days of the year. Nevertheless my jar shows no signs of any imminent hatching. I find the eggs just as I gathered them nine months ago, neither wrinkled nor tarnished, wearing, on the contrary, a most healthy look. What causes this indefinitely prolonged delay? A suspicion occurs to me. The eggs of the Grasshopper tribe are planted in the earth like seeds. They are there exposed, without any kind of protection, to the watery influence of the snow and the rain. Those [ ]in my jar have spent two-thirds of the year in a state of comparative dryness. Perhaps, in order to hatch, they lack what grain absolutely needs in order to sprout. Animal seeds as they are, they may yet require under earth the moisture necessary to vegetable seeds. Let us try. 240 I place at the bottom of some glass tubes, to enable me to make certain observations which I have in mind, a pinch of backward eggs taken from my collection; and on the top I heap lightly a layer of very fine, damp sand. The receptacle is closed with a plug of wet cotton, which will maintain a constant moisture in the interior. The column of sand measures about an inch, which is very much the depth at which the ovipositor places the eggs. Any one seeing my preparations and unacquainted with their object would hardly suspect them of being incubators; he would be more likely to think them the apparatus of a botanist who was experimenting with seeds. My anticipation was correct. Favoured by the high temperature of the summer solstice, the Grasshopper seed does not take long to sprout. The eggs swell; the front end of each is spotted with two dark dots, [ ]the rudiments of the eyes. It is quite evident that the bursting of the shell is near at hand. 241 I spend a fortnight in keeping a tedious watch at every hour of the day: I have to surprise the young Decticus actually leaving the egg, if I want to solve a question that has long been vexing my mind. The question is this: the Grasshopper’s egg is buried at a varying depth, according to the length of the ovipositor or dibble. An inch is about the most for the seeds of the best-equipped insects in our parts. Now the newborn Decticus, hopping awkwardly in the grass at the approach of summer, is, like the adult, endowed with a pair of very long tentacles, vying with hairs for slenderness; he carries behind him two extraordinary legs, two enormous hinged levers, a pair of jumping-stilts that would be very inconvenient for ordinary walking. How does the feeble little creature set to work, with this cumbrous luggage, to emerge from the earth? By what artifice does it manage to clear a passage through the rough soil? With its antennary plumes, which an atom of sand can break, with its immense shanks, which the least effort is enough to [ ]disjoint, the mite is obviously incapable of reaching the surface and freeing itself. 242 The miner going underground puts on a protective dress. The little Grasshopper also, making a hole in the earth in the opposite direction, must don an overall for emerging from the earth; he must possess a simpler, more compact transition-form, which enables him to come out through the sand, a delivery-shape analogous to that which the Cicada and the Praying Mantis use at the moment of issuing, one from his twig, the other from the labyrinth of his nest. Reality and logic here agree. The Decticus, in point of fact, does not leave the egg in the form in which I see him, the day after his birth, hopping on the lawn; he possesses a temporary structure better-suited to the difficulties of the emergence. Coloured a delicate flesh-white, the tiny creature is cased in a scabbard which keeps the six legs flattened against the abdomen, stretching backwards, inert. In order to slip more easily under the ground, he has his shanks tied up beside his body. The antennæ, those other irksome appendages, are motionless, pressed against the parcel. The head is very much bent against the [ ]chest. With its big, black ocular specks and its undecided and rather bloated mask, it suggests a diver’s helmet. The neck opens wide at the back and, with a slow throbbing, by turns swells and subsides. That is the motor. The new-born insect moves along with the aid of its occipital hernia. When uninflated, the fore-part pushes back the damp sand a little way and slips into it by digging a tiny pit; then, blown out, it becomes a knob, which moulds itself and finds a support in the depression obtained. Then the rear-end contracts; and this gives a step forward. Each thrust of the locomotive blister means nearly a millimetre traversed. 243 4 It is pitiful to see this budding flesh, scarcely tinged with pink, knocking with its dropsical neck and ramming the rough soil. The animal glair, not yet quite hardened, struggles painfully with stone; and its efforts are so well directed that, in the space of a morning, a gallery opens, either straight or winding, an inch long and as wide as an average straw. In this way the harassed insect reaches the surface. Half-caught in its exit-shaft, the disinterred one halts, waits for its strength to [ ]return and then for the last time swells its occipital hernia as far as it will go and bursts the sheath that has protected it so far. The creature throws off its miner’s overall. 244 Here at last is the Decticus in his youthful shape, quite pale still, but darker the next day and a regular blackamoor compared with the adult. As a prelude to the ivory face of a riper age, he sports a narrow white stripe under his hinder thighs. Little Decticus, hatched before my eyes, life opens for you very harshly! Many of your kindred must die of exhaustion before attaining their freedom. In my tubes I see numbers who, stopped by a grain of sand, succumb half-way and become furred with a sort of silky mildew. The mouldy part soon absorbs their poor little remains. When performed without my assistance, the coming to the light of day must be attended with even greater dangers. The usual soil is coarse and baked by the sun. Without a fall of rain, how do they manage, these immured ones? More fortunate in my tubes with their sifted and wetted mould, here you are outside, you little white-striped nigger; you bite at the lettuce-leaf which I have given [ ]you; you leap about gaily in the cage where I have housed you. It would be easy to rear you, I can see, but it would not give me much fresh information. Let us then part company. I restore you to liberty. In return for what you have taught me, I bestow upon you the grass and the Locusts in the garden. 245 Thanks to you, I know that Grasshoppers, in order to leave the ground in which the eggs are laid, possess a provisional shape, a primary larval stage, which keeps those too cumbrous parts, the long legs and antennæ, swathed in a common sheath; I know that this sort of mummy, fit only to lengthen and shorten itself a little, has for an organ of locomotion a hernia in the neck, a throbbing blister, an original piece of mechanism which I have never seen used elsewhere as an aid to progression. 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 (2021). The Life of the Grasshopper. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66650/pg66650-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 WHITE-FACED DECTICUS: THE LAYING AND THE HATCHING OF THE EGGS

Field, Forest and Farm by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE STAG-BEETLE CHAPTER XLV. THE STAG-BEETLE “One of the joys of your time of life, I am sure,” resumed Uncle Paul, as he and his hearers seated themselves in the shade of an old oak tree amid the humming and whirring of insect life all about them, “is the study of the little creatures of field and farm and forest, so interesting in their mode of life, so varied in their forms and colors. You chase the splendid butterfly from flower to flower, you take up the cockchafer and put it on a bed of fresh leaves, with a straw you drive the cricket from its hole. The insect that amuses you can also instruct you. In our modest studies let us now have a little talk on this subject. “What is this tiny creature with the stout coat-of-mail of chestnut color? Its large head, showing parallel folds that might have been carved by a sculptor’s hand, is armed with two branching nippers which open like a pair of tongs and then close, mangling between their teeth the finger they have seized. Woe to the giddy-pate that lets himself be caught by them! The trap closes tighter and tighter and never lets go. “But, vigorous as are its mandibles, the insect is not one to be afraid of, provided only you look [ ]out for those nippers. For all its threatening aspect, it is at bottom a peaceful creature. Catch it by one leg and it will fly round and round like the June-bug. It is called the stag-beetle, a name that explains itself, for it has branching mandibles resembling a stag’s horns, and it belongs to the family of beetles. Put the two words together and you have ‘stag-beetle.’ 229 “The singular creature has not always been as we see it to-day. In its youth, not later than last year, it had neither its present mandibles nor its six legs nor its chestnut-colored coat-of-mail. In fact, its form had nothing in common with what we now behold. Then it was a big, fat worm, with fine white skin, crawling on legs so small and feeble as hardly to deserve mention. Stag-beetle “The whole animal consisted of little more than a crawling stomach unprovided with any protection. The head alone was fortified with a substantial skull of horn, and it also bore, one on the right side of the mouth, the other on the left, two short but strong teeth adapted to cutting in pieces the wood of the oak, its sole nourishment. “Such a worm, entirely naked, evidently cannot live in the open air, where the thousand little roughnesses of the ground would be continually wounding its delicate skin. It must have a safe shelter that it need not leave until it has become the well-armored insect we now see. The grub of the stag-beetle does [ ]in fact live inside the oak, which affords it at once food and lodging. There, in the depths of the tree-trunk, is its inviolable retreat. 230 “With its two teeth, as hard and sharp as a carpenter’s tool, it cuts away, patiently, bit by bit, the fresh wood imbued with sap. Each fragment thus detached is a mouthful for the worm’s nourishment; but as it is by no means a rich diet there must be a good deal of it to furnish enough nutriment. Therefore the gnawing goes on without cessation, in all directions, with a corresponding enlargement of the domicile, which soon becomes a labyrinth of galleries that go up and down and cross one another, penetrate farther into the trunk or approach the surface, at the pleasure of the occupant, whose choice is determined by its taste for morsels lying in this or that direction. “For three or four years this is the worm’s mode of life. To make itself big and fat is its sole business, and to this it devotes itself with vigor. I leave you to imagine what must become of an oak tree worked by a dozen of these gnawing creatures. Under the bark, which is almost intact, the trunk is one vast wound, perforated with galleries that are themselves littered with wormhole dust, and oozing with a brown juice that smells like a tannery. Unless the forester applies a remedy, and that speedily, the enormous oak will be ruined. Leaving this care to his charge, let us go on with our story. “When it has become big enough and fat enough, after at least three years of continual feasting, the [ ]worm prepares to change its form. Near the surface, that its future exit may be the easier, the little creature hollows out a sufficiently large oval chamber and lines it with a sort of wadding made of the finest fibers of the wood. Thus the tender flesh of the rejuvenated insect will be protected from all rude outer contact. 231 “These precautions taken, the worm undergoes its transfiguration: it splits open all down the back, strips off its skin, throws it away like a discarded garment, and is born a second time, as one might say, but under a totally different form. It is no longer a worm—far from it—but it is not yet a stag-beetle, although the outlines of the latter are already discernible. “The creature is quite motionless, as if dead. The legs, neatly folded over the stomach, are as transparent as crystals; the nippers are pressed close to the breast; the wings, not yet expanded, have the appearance of a short scarf encircling the flanks; and the whole is swathed in swaddling-clothes finer in texture than an onion skin. The entire organism is wrapped in a repose so profound that one might think all life extinct. It is white or crystalline in appearance, and so tender that a mere nothing will wound it. The coarse worm of the beginning has been succeeded by this most delicate of creatures. “Out of the material amassed by the wood-gnawer’s voracious appetite there is created an entirely new being. The flesh, at first nearly fluid, slowly [ ]acquires consistency; the skin hardens, assumes a chestnut hue, takes on the firmness of horn; in fact, when the warm season returns again the insect wakes up from that deep sleep, not of death, but nevertheless very much like it. The creature moves, tears apart the swathing bands under which its rebirth has taken place, strips off these wrappings, and here at last we have the insect in its full perfection. Behold the stag-beetle! 232 “It comes out from its native oak, spreads its wings in flight under cover of the foliage, and settles down, now on this tree, now on that, in the rays of the sun. The freedom of the open air and the enjoyment of the light of day constitute its supreme felicity for which it has been preparing during the three or four years of constant toil in the dark galleries of an old oak. “Thenceforth it grows no larger. Just as it was on emerging from its cell, so it will remain to the end, without the least increase either in weight or in bulk. Thus it leads a very staid existence. In its grub state the famished creature gnawed wood night and day; its life was a perpetual digestion. Now, on the contrary, all that it needs in the way of sustenance is an occasional sip of the sweetened sap oozing from the bark of the tree. “But its days of idle delight are numbered; it has scarcely a couple of months to spend joyously among the oak trees. Then it lays its eggs, one by one, in the crevices of tree-trunks, to propagate its kind; and, that done, it very soon dies. It has played its [ ]part. From those eggs will come forth worms which will patiently work their way into the wood, hollow out galleries there in their turn, and begin all over again the very sort of existence led by their fore-fathers. 233 “The greater number of insects have the same life-history as the stag-beetle: they pass through different stages before taking on their final form. All without exception, the smallest as well as the largest, come from eggs deposited by the mother in chosen places where the needed nourishment, so variable in different species, is easy to find. “From the egg emerges, not the finished insect with all its distinctive traits, but a provisional creature bearing, very often, no resemblance to the parent or to the matured offspring of that parent. This initial form we called a worm in speaking of the stag-beetle, and the name is in that instance appropriate; but in a multitude of cases it would be incorrect, having no agreement with the creature’s appearance. We then call it a larva. “The larva is therefore the insect under the form it presents on emerging from the egg. Its continuance in this form is longer than in that of the finally perfected creature. The larva of the stag-beetle remains a larva for three or four years, whereas the beetle itself lives but a couple of months. The sole occupation of this grub is eating, continual eating, that it may grow fat and store up supplies enough to carry it through its subsequent transformations. “Having attained sufficient size, the larva constructs [ ]a retreat for itself, hollows out a little cell, and spins a cocoon where in perfect quiet the delicate task of transformation will be undertaken. It strips off its skin and becomes an inert, formative body known as a nymph. 234 “Finally, the nymph, having arrived at the right degree of maturity, casts off its wrappings and reveals itself as transformed into a perfect insect. It lays its eggs, and the same succession of changes is again repeated. The egg, the larva, the nymph, the perfect insect—there you have the four stages of the insect’s life. These changes of form are called metamorphoses.” 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). Field, Forest and Farm. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67813/pg67813-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 STAG-BEETLE

Field, Forest and Farm by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . SLIPPING CHAPTER XXXVI. SLIPPING “Propagation by means of a slip or scion cut from the parent tree and so placed that it will develop adventitious roots we may for convenience speak of as slipping. The cut end of the slip is set in the ground in some cool, moist, shady spot where evaporation is slow and the temperature mild. For delicate slips the shelter of a bell-glass is often necessary in order to insure the requisite moisture in the atmosphere and thus prevent the slip from drying up before it has sent down roots to make good its losses. For greater surety, if the slip has many leaves, most of the lower ones are removed in order to reduce the evaporating surface as much as possible without compromising the plant’s vitality, which resides especially in the upper part. But in many cases these precautions are needless; thus, to propagate the grape-vine, willow, and poplar, it suffices merely to thrust the detached scion into the ground. “Trees whose wood is soft and well filled with sap are the ones best fitted for slipping; to this class belongs the willow, with its notably tender fiber. On the other hand, wood that is dense and hard gives us sure warning that this mode of propagation will [ ]be found very difficult or even impossible. Thus it would invariably fail with the oak, the olive, the box-tree, and a great many more hard-wood trees. Furthermore, slipping offers far less certainty of success than layering, since the layer remains in communication with the parent stock and is thus supplied with nourishment until it has acquired roots of its own, whereas the slip, all such communication being abruptly cut off, is obliged from the outset to rely on its own resources and pass without help through the difficult period of rootlessness. Among fruit-bearers there are scarcely any except the grape-vine, the currant-bush, the quince-tree, and a few varieties of plum and apple trees, that lend themselves to this method of propagation. Among the larger trees the willow and the poplar take root with no difficulty whatever when started from the slip. Finally, a great many ornamental species, herbaceous plants or bushes like the rose, jasmine, and honeysuckle, multiply easily by this method, the usual one adopted with them by the flower-gardener. 179 “Let us go back now to the very simplest case, the one calling for the fewest precautions. A damp piece of ground on the water’s edge is to be planted with poplars or willows. Toward the end of winter the forester in charge cuts a sufficient number of vigorous young branches as large around as a stout cane or even a man’s fist, or perhaps larger, and from one to four meters long. He removes all the lower twigs, clips the intermediate ones to half their length, and leaves the upper ones intact if the tree [ ]is to be pyramid-shaped; otherwise he gives the top a truncate form. Finally the lower end is cut to a point with the hatchet, to make it easier to thrust into the ground. Now the slip is ready for planting, and all that is necessary is to push it well down into the earth by its pointed end and leave it to itself. Without any further attention, if the ground is sufficiently damp, adventitious roots will start, and each of the stakes thus rudely hacked will become a poplar or a willow. 180 “But other forms of vegetation are far from manifesting this facility in rooting which makes possible the growth of a tree from a stake driven into the ground, it may be with the blow of a club; therefore delicate precautions are necessary for success if these obdurate subjects are to be propagated by slips. Let us take the grape-vine as an example. Its slips for planting are shoots of the same year’s growth. These are tied in a bundle and their cut ends placed in water to soak for a week or more. Why this long immersion of the part that later is to be planted in the ground? Because the outside bark is dry and tough, difficult for tender roots to pierce, especially if the soil is dry. Accordingly the bark is softened by soaking for some time in water; and also, when the slips are taken out of the water, they are lightly scraped where they are to be in the earth, but left untouched where they are to be in the air. In this way the outer layer of bark is removed after being softened in water, and there is so much the less resistance offered to the growing roots; [ ]but the inner layers, where the vine’s vital activities go on, are scrupulously spared. The slight wounds inflicted by this scraping, let it be further noted, favor the starting of roots by arresting the sap. After being prepared in this manner the slips are set out. In soil that has been well worked so that the young roots may push downward without hindrance, vertical holes are made with a long iron or wooden dibble, and in each of these holes a slip is inserted to the depth of about half a meter. Fine earth is then sifted into the hole and well rammed down to insure perfect contact with the slip, and the operation is finished. 181 “Just as the process of layering is facilitated by the formation of a ring-shaped swelling where the descending sap is arrested in its course either by a ligature or by the removal of a ring of bark, so the same artifice can be advantageously employed in propagating by means of slips. Around the shoot selected as slip for the next year’s planting an iron wire is tightly bound; or, instead of this, a ring of bark is cut away. By autumn a swelling will have formed all about the stem, whereupon the shoot is detached and placed in the ground for the winter in order that the swelling may become a little further enlarged and somewhat softened. In the spring the shoot is taken up again, trimmed so that it shall have only four or five buds left, and planted like an ordinary slip. From the ring-shaped swelling caused by the accumulation of sap roots will start. “All the advantages offered by the ring-shaped swelling may be secured with no expenditure of ingenuity on our part. Take hold of a small branch and pull it down so as to split it off from the main stem. Thus torn away it will bring with it a sort of spur or splinter from the trunk directly under the severed branch. This spur, trimmed with a knife to give it a less ragged outline, will render the same service as the ring-shaped swelling: the descending sap will be stopped in its course at this point, will accumulate, and will foster the growth of adventitious roots. “Instead of breaking off the branch by tearing it away at its base, one can, with a stroke of the pruning-knife above this base and another below it, cut the older limb bearing this branch so that the latter carries with it a piece of the former. With this piece as a sort of natural bourrelet or swelling, success is rendered more assured than in any other way. “To conclude, let us say a few words about slipping by means of buds, a kind of planting that uses buds instead of seeds. This method, which requires the nicest care of any, is adopted only in exceptional cases. Let us suppose we have a very few shoots, or only one, from some extremely rare variety of grape-vine, and we wish to obtain from this single shoot the greatest possible number of slips. To this end the shoot is cut into small pieces about five centimeters long, each bearing a bud midway of its length. These pieces are then each split in two lengthwise, and the part with the bud is retained, the other thrown away. Thus prepared, the pieces [ ]are planted in fertile soil with the split surface underneath and the bud just peeping out of the earth. But to insure any likelihood of success with this method, certain special conditions not called for in ordinary planting must be observed, as will be readily understood. The delicate slips are arranged with care in an earthen pan or pot, and covered with a bell-glass to assure them a moist and warm atmosphere. After roots have started the slips are transplanted, each being placed in a separate pot where it gains strength and awaits the proper time for planting in the ground.” 183 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). Field, Forest and Farm. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67813/pg67813-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.

Propagation by means of a slip or scion cut from the parent tree

That the world needs to transition to a green economy and follow an alternate vision of growth and development that is both self-sustainable and benign to the environment is not in doubt at all. What needs to be, however, not forgotten is the fact that such a seminal change in the growth model followed by the world cannot come about by good intentions alone. Merely expounding the virtues of wind, solar, geothermal, and other forms of sustainable and non-polluting energy sources without understanding and accounting for the immense challenges that come in the way of implementing such a paradigm change in energy generation methodologies will inevitably lead to failure. Like it or not, fossil fuels are here to stay for a long time. Till the time sufficient technological progress is made in ensuring alternative forms of energy generation are cheaper and more efficiently and conveniently available than fossil fuels, we will continue to use them. That is likely to be the likely scenario, at least for the foreseeable future. There really is no perfect substitute for fossil fuels in terms of wide-scale availability and ever-improving technology for extracting or producing these. It is important to remember that the advent of the fossil fuel age brought about tremendous improvements in the lives of people around the world, setting them on the course of unimaginable progress. Life in the pre-fossil fuel age wasn’t as rosy or utopian as one might imagine. People would clear away vast tracts of forests to use as firewood and building materials. Animal-drawn carts and carriages led to cities, towns, and villages becoming exceedingly dirty and diseases-prone on account of vast amounts of horse and cattle dung lying about on the streets. The modern global economy has come about because of the industrial revolution, which would not have been possible without fossil fuels. That has immense significance in the history of mankind, given that the industrial revolution allowed millions of people to emerge from poverty. It, in effect, made the modern world we see around us. That was how things were, but the world is at a tipping point with regard to the climate crisis brought about by global warming that has been, to a very large extent, caused by the humongous fossil fuel-powered global economy. [1] Challenges faced in transitioning to a green economy There are numerous challenges faced in transitioning to a green economy, the least of which is the high upfront cost accrued because of the adoption of green technology in terms of creating new infrastructure, retrofitting existing infrastructure and facilities, and training people in the use of the new technology. Besides, implementing green technology solutions is a long-term process that involves massive amounts of investment with no prospects of profitable returns for a very long time. Also, there is a limit to how much ground can be used as an alternative source of energy, like wind and solar cover, when it comes to completely replacing conventional sources of energy. If alternative green sources of energy cannot account for more than a quarter of the final energy consumption demand, can the world afford to move to these technologies at any time in the distant future? [2] It is all very well for nations around the world to set up green energy transition goals, but any forced or coercive measures to bring around this change may prove counterproductive. This is something that developing countries like India, which have a long way to go before they can be considered fully developed, have to be cognizant of when planning their growth strategies for the coming decades. Instead of using a green technology or nothing approach, what needs to be done to achieve global sustainability goals is to look at technology-agnostic policies that make it possible for all kinds of clean energy technologies to be given an equal opportunity to prove their worth. Advances in clean fossil technologies, for instance, may show the way for developing countries like India, where the demand for energy is expected to grow enormously as their economies grow in the years ahead. Natural gas, primarily comprising methane, for instance, emits half as much carbon dioxide when burnt than coal. What can also be done to clean up the environmental pollution caused by the use of fossil fuels is to capture the carbon dioxide generated and store it underground using the technique of carbon capture and sequestration. One can also try to enhance the efficiency of fossil fuel-run power plants. This will lead to a lower consumption of fuel and a lower amount of carbon dioxide emission. [3] What ultimately needs to be done is to find an integrated system of energy production and consumption that leaves a minimal impact on the environment, allowing it to repair itself and recover. Advocating romantic notions of living entirely off sunlight, air, and naturally occurring geothermal energy may prevent us from looking at the issue objectively and coming up with an environment-friendly growth and development policy that will actually work. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-are-fossil-fuels-so-hard-to-quit/#:~:text=We%20haven't%20found%20a,largely%20true%20for%20natural%20gas. [1] https://energypost.eu/the-dangers-of-green-technology-forcing/ [2] https://news.stanford.edu/2017/10/05/future-energy-fossil-fuels/ [3]

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