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Are you sick and tired of… Repeatedly inputting the same KYC info over and over again? Spamming refresh only to be met by blank 404 pages whilst registering for whitelists? Or being told the public crowdsale has now been cancelled because the teams filled their hard cap through private presales? And how about those narcissistic money grabbing founders who attempt to raise ludicrous amounts of money via dutch auctions after getting their community to slave away for them for free by doing tons of menial work? Lest we forget, there’s also the Telegram porn spam when ICOs don’t quite go according to plan — (lol let’s not fool ourselves, I know you aren’t actually sick of this one) TheKey ICO Fail — Hmm you need more “CPUs” to handle increased traffic hey? Well, if you are sick of the above then I’ve got something for you that is sure to make you harder than Telegram porn ever will and it’s… The Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange! What the f#@! is Gibraltar? If you weren’t aware, Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory located on Spain’s south coast, which is also named after an awesome rock called… you guessed it, Gibraltar! The Rock of Gibraltar in Gibraltar where the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange will operate from. (No, they won’t operate on the rock but they will operate from within Gibraltar if you didn’t catch that.) Aside from being famous for this rock, Gibraltar has a vibrant FinTech community as a result of their progressive thinking and actions dating some 20 odd years back since 1995 when the government worked towards establishing legal and banking infrastructure around e-gaming aka online gambling. Thanks to their forward thinking Gibraltar is now one of the world’s pre-eminent e-gaming hubs with over 20 Gibraltar companies accounting for more than 40% of the world’s e-gaming market. Okay.. who the hell cares? Well you should care because they’re looking to repeat history as they now shift their focus towards crypto to hopefully make Gibraltar , much like they did for e-gaming and gambling long before the internet was widely adopted. “The Crypto Harbor” What They’ve Done to Facilitate This So Far The Gibraltar Government published a consultation paper on regulating digital currencies back in January of 2016 (so roughly 20 Crypto years ago) and after an 18 month consultation period they released the in January 2018 Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) regulatory framework This regulatory framework essentially allows those who are carrying out a business using to do so in a licensed and regulated manner. blockchain technology The next target for the Gibraltar government is to now work towards licensing and regulating ICOs and token sales. Without going too deep down the rabbit hole, the main takeaway that you need to to know from all of this is that: The Gibraltar government is extremely bullish and supportive of crypto. The Gibraltar’s Minister for Commerce Hon. Albert Isola even mentioned that the government is looking into potentially incorporating blockchain/distributed ledger technology to run future elections. Hon. Albert Isola, Minister for Financial Services and Gaming Now… This is where the Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) comes into play! The Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange (GBX) is a subsidiary of , which owns the Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX), a stock exchange that’s been operational since Q1 2015 and was the first licensed stock exchange in Gibraltar. GSX Group Limited Not only were they the first licensed stock exchange but GSX were also the first to offer a bitcoin-backed Exchange Traded Instrument, the BitcoinETI, which invests exclusively in bitcoin and was also the first European regulated product for bitcoin. What Gibraltar Blockchain Exchange Aims to Do Breaking it down, the 2 main core objectives of GBX is to be: A world-leading institutional-grade token sale and ICO platform that operates under Gibraltar’s regulatory framework; and A high-quality crypto exchange, including a marketplace where issuers of utility tokens, traders and investors can participate with confidence and trust in a platform where the tokens listed have been subjected to an institutional grade approval process. Beyond this, the GSX group is also aiming to be the world’s first stock exchange for tokenized securities. 5 Reasons Why GBX Has Got Me Rock Hard and Bullish 1. Partnerships and Involvement in the Wider Blockchain Community These guys aren’t just traditional financial folks expecting to come into crypto to take over, make some easy money, and screw everyone else over. They’re actually looking to integrate and collaborate with the blockchain community to help further crypto movement. In Q3 2017 the GBX Blockchain Innovation Centre was established to help promote blockchain innovation, foster creation of new DApps and also develop new protocols and blockchain software. Beyond this, GSX also joined Linux Foundation’s Hyperledger project in September 2017 and this was followed by joining the Ethereum Enterprise Alliance in November 2017. They also have a strategic partnership in place with QUOINE, one of the largest crypto exchanges based on trading volume, which was also one of the first regulated and licensed crypto exchanges in Japan. 2. Tokenomics I’m not talking about token metrics (i.e. hard cap, token % distributed, vesting periods etc), I’m talking about the actual token economics within the GBX ecosystem how the token will be used. One of the best things about the token is that it’s ticker is RKT. I would presume they went with RKT because there’s little chance that you’ll get REKT if you go all in on it… (Only kidding, it actually stands for Rock Token — please remember, none of this constitutes for financial or investment advice!) It’s clear from the white paper great thought has gone into how the RKT token will provide utility and value within the GBX ecosystem. In other words, RKT isn’t just a useless token. For people who want to issue an ICO and sell their tokens, there’s a tentative application fee of $10,000 USD payable only in RKT which is non-refundable. A listing fee is also payable only in RKT where 15% of total listing fees will need to be staked for at least 24 months to ensure the token issuers comply with their obligations and they don’t do any dodgy or shady shit. Aside from this, the RKT will also be used as per other normal crypto exchange coins… To pay for trading fees, voting on developments of community, getting early access to ICO sales, as well as pay for other financial services provided by GBX, and lastly, for sponsors to stake a share of RKT to ensure they act in the best interests of everyone involved. (Sponsors are essentially like investment banks in an IPO landscape. So people who want to issue or sale their tokens will get matched up with a sponsor who helps them to follow the proper procedures in fulfilling their obligations and guiding them through the ICO process from whitepaper to listing the token on exchanges.) All these various uses of the RKT token essentially means that if more ICOs use this platform to do their ICO, the RKT token will appreciate due to demand from everyone in the ecosystem from ICO issuers, sponsors, to buyers and traders. A short 1 minute video on RKT and how it serves as a utility token for GBX. 3. Government Support and Regulations The Gibraltar government as mentioned are bullish towards crypto and this could be the single X-factor that GBX has up their sleeves that puts them ahead of other crypto exchanges. This is very much a collaboration and coming together of minds, rather than the government and GBX working against one another or GBX needing to convince the government of the benefits to come from regulating cryptos. “This Government successfully delivered DLT Regulations that came into effect in early January 2018. I am very pleased and encouraged by the volume and quality of applications received by the GFSC. I announced last year that we would introduce complementary yet distinct legislation covering token sales and have asked the GFSC to complete this work-stream at the earliest opportunity. We remain fully committed to ensuring that we protect consumers and the reputation of our jurisdiction.” — Hon. Albert Isola, Gibraltar Minister of Commerce 4. The Team is Too Legit to Quit The GBX team has been working together for several years since establishing the Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX) and many of them possess several decades of experience in their respective fields whether that’s finance, law, or tech. With staff and founder tokens vested over 3 years these guys are clearly committed for the long haul. They also have one of the best forms of a proof of concept with an operational Gibraltar Stock Exchange. In their whitepaper they stated that if they failed to reach the ICO hardcap they would pull capital from GSX to help fund remaining milestones. Fortunately they sold out in their public sales within 9 seconds so they won’t have to resort to this but just knowing that if they do ever run into trouble, GSX will be there to help pull them out. Last but not least, after having watched several interviews of the CEO, Nick Cowan, the guy comes across as a genuine sick k*nt and is just someone I would want to see lead the way for a project of this magnitude. CEO Nick Cowan on Bloomberg discussing GBX 5. There Will Likely Be Strong Demand for GBX Buyers will want to buy and trade on GBX because: GBX will provide an all in one solution for buyers with several trading options including Fiat to Crypto, Crypto to Crypto, as well as a platform to participate in the latest and best ICOs. No more hassle of repeatedly entering KYC details over and over again to whitelist for different ICOs beccause it’s all on GBX. Much lower risk of your KYC details getting hacked or leaked so you don’t have to worry about your identity getting blacklisted and you getting thrown into jail when you visit some random foreign country. (If this happens, just remember, don’t drop the soap.) Less of a need to perform research and due diligence to figure out whether a project is a total scam, a money grab, or just plain full of shit as GBX and their sponsor system will handle that leg work for you. Project teams behind the ICOs will want in because: It helps get rid of the headache of having to deal with everything that goes into running an ICO from KYC/whitelisting to smart contracts to managing funds and everything else that needs to be taken care of. This also means they avoid or minimize the possibility of scams and hacks occurring during their ICO. ICO is done under a regulated exchange and jurisdiction so this will help cover their asses and ensure they don’t break any laws that could come back to haunt them. With major exchanges having 3 month wait lists to get a token listed, many projects are having to settle for getting listed on obscure and low volume exchanges. However for the issuers of ICOs on GBX, they are guaranteed a listing on GBX’s crypto exchange Application and listing fees are reasonable and amounts to a lot of time saved and money on lawyers, external KYC services, and other requirements which could be better spent on developing their product and further building their community If GBX takes off, other exchanges will also want to list the tokens that ICO on GBX because they won’t want to lose market share or traders. And as GBX is aiming to attract ICOs of the highest quality and caliber, you can bet the other major exchanges will want to list them because everyone will want to buy them! For Institutional Investors: The Gibraltar Stock Exchange (GSX) intends to be the world’s first regulated exchange for trading security tokens. This is massive because security tokens are essentially a gray area in crypto right now and there is no regulated exchange available to trade “tokenized securities”. The GSX plans to shift towards an auditable, blockchain-based exchange where all participants will be registered holders of securities tokens satisfying the concerns of regulatons regarding tokenised securities. GSX plans to operate the GSX as a centralised tokenised securities exchange beginning Q3 2018 before they transition to a blockchain-based system Q4 2018. With a regulated exchange and environment available to trade in for institutional investors, this means those of them who want to get in on crypto can finally enter the markets because they won’t be violating any rules, laws, or regulations. The other cool is that when GSX does move to a blockchain-based system, there will be less time for settlement on stocks. In traditional markets, the settlement date for trading ranges anywhere from 2 to 3 days whereas on a blockchain system it would be immediate. Is This Rock Really As Solid as it Looks? Having laid out the pros, it’s now time to tear the project apart and feed you some FUD. As with any project, there are several risks associated to it and it wouldn’t be fair to not share what some of those risks are. Competition tZero is the closest competitor to GBX that I can see however they’re looking to raise $250M as opposed to GBX’s hard cap of $27M. tZero hasn’t publicly specified when they plan to launch their exchange aside from mentioning it will be sometime later this year. GBX is aiming for a Q1 2018 launch for their crypto exchange and so would have first mover’s advantage if they do execute. Many of the other major crypto exchanges want to do what GBX sets out to do but this is a real challenge for them due to the trading infrastructure they have in place as well as their mindset and ability to move quickly. If they can barely keep up with opening new accounts how can we expect them to also operate and become regulation compliant. The real true barrier however for these exchanges is the lack of regulatory support in their respective jurisdictions whereas Gibraltar seems to have a strong hard on for crypto. The State of the ICO Market With the way the current ICO market is going, we need to consider whether high quality ICO projects will even continue to offer public sales as more and more astute investors flood into this space. Many of the most promising ICOs are currently managing to fill the majority — if not all — of their fund allocations through private sales, thus choosing to forego the need for a public crowdsale. In the future, we may see more and more DApp projects emerging as platforms solve their scalability issues thus enabling DApps to have more viability. If this results, then these projects will likely want their utility tokens to be in the hands of people who will ACTUALLY use their token within their ecosystems, as opposed to investors who are just looking to flip, sell, or hodl their tokens and make money. Centralisation I queried the team as to whether GBX and GSX will be centralised aka permissioned blockchains or public decentralized permissionless blockchains. They weren’t able to give me a straight answer. Going off some basic logical deduction however, it’s more likely than not that the GSX and GBX blockchains will at least start out as private blockhains, which means GSX and GBX will act as centralised entities and exchanges. This in itself is not as useless or stupid as some people believe because the blockchain technology can despite what many think, still work and provide benefits without a token incentivizing the need for nodes. This is pure speculation on my part however it is something to be considered because the trust and faith of the crypto community towards centralized entities is important in regards to the adoption of them. As we all know several hacks have been committed on centralized exchanges and there are other inconveniences that may result from centralized entities such as “planned” maintenance and not allowing withdrawal of cryptos during such times. The flip side of this however is that centralisation, ironically enough, would likely allow institutional investors and traditional finance to enter into this space because they have more trust in the old traditional way of running things, as opposed to a blockchain that works by having anonymous individual nodes located around the world cooperating together. It may also be that to fulfill regulatory rules around crypto a centralized entity will be required to begin with. Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen? Looking at the macro perspective of what GBX is aiming to do, the whole picture can seem somewhat overwhelming and highly ambitious. There are a lot of moving parts, factors, and parties to take into account for the whole GBX ecosystem and crypto exchanges to mesh well and work together. The primary reason why exchanges such as Coinbase, Gemini, or GDAX don’t list heaps of different pairs for fiat to crypto or introduce crypto to crypto trading on their exchanges is because they are the most regulatory compliant exchanges out there. This means they are under much heavier scrutiny as to what they are able to offer and have hefty penalties and consequences if something does go pear-shaped. With the backing of the Gibraltar government however, this as mentioned can be the real game changer and X-factor in allowing GBX to build out this whole suite of crypto offerings including Fiat to Crypto, Crypto to Crypto, as well as a regulated platform for ICOs to be issued and buyers to participate in. MVP — MVP — MVP There is no github that I can see for GBX at this point in time. You could technically say that this is solely a whitepaper project, however one could also argue that they have an MVP in the form of the Gibraltar Stock Exchange. In the whitepaper it was also mentioned they have 43 full-time developers and IT staff working on the GBX project currently. The Gubment Despite the Gibraltar government being pro crypto, this doesn’t mean the normal obstacles and hurdles of Government red tape does not lay ahead of them. As is the case with governments, there is the possibility of delays that could halt the progress made on the GBX and GSX projects. The Gibraltar government intends to bring an ICO regulatory framework to vote in parliament Q2 2018. If this regulation is rejected or delayed for whatever reason, this would inevitably delay GBX’s progression on the roadmap laid out. The other major elephant in the room is that Gibraltar IS a British Overseas Territory and with the Brexit due to happen in 2019 when UK exits the European Union. It isn’t clear what this could mean for the crypto laws and regulation put in place in Gibraltar. All in all If GBX manage to tackle what they set out to do by getting the first steps right and setting up the ICO listing platform so that it works well. It’s likely they’ll be able to attract top tier quality projects, and this will then attract the best investors and buyers to the exchange leading to a wider scale adoption as everyone else will want in on the best ICOs too. The demand and confidence behind GBX has seemingly been made loud and clear with their public sale selling out in 9 seconds. The GBX RKT token will be tradable on QUONEX Global and the Qryptos exchange from 26th February 12:00:00 (UTC). For further info check out: Website: Documents and Whitepaper: Blog: https://gbx.gi/ https://gbx.gi/documents/ https://medium.com/@Gibraltar.Blockchain.Exchange

Why This New CryptoCurrency Exchange Might Just Make You Rock Hard

BUSINESS EFFORTS AND A DISCOVERY

LOVEDAY GROWS MYSTERIOUS

The art of rolling a leaf

The Life and Love of the Insect by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . A DUNG-BEETLE OF THE PAMPAS CHAPTER VIII. A DUNG-BEETLE OF THE PAMPAS To travel over the world, by land and sea, from pole to pole; to cross-question life, under every clime, in the infinite variety of its manifestations: that surely would be glorious luck for him that has eyes to see with; and it formed the radiant dream of my young years, at the time when Robinson Crusoe was my delight. These rosy illusions, rich in voyages, were soon succeeded by dull, stay-at-home reality. The jungles of India, the virgin forests of Brazil, the towering crests of the Andes, beloved by the condor, were reduced, as a field for exploration, to a patch of pebble-stones enclosed within four walls. Heaven forfend that I should complain! The gathering of ideas does not necessarily imply distant expeditions. Jean-Jacques Rousseau herborized with the bunch of chickweed whereon he fed his canary; Bernardin de Saint-Pierre discovered a world on a strawberry-plant that grew by accident in a corner of his window; Xavier de Maistre, using an arm-chair by way of post-chaise, made one of the most famous of journeys around his room. This manner of seeing country is within my means, always excepting the post-chaise, which is too difficult to drive through the brambles. I go the circuit of my [ ]enclosure over and over again, a hundred times, by short stages; I stop here and I stop there; patiently, I put questions; and, at long intervals, I receive some scrap of a reply. 100 The smallest insect village has become familiar to me: I know each fruit-branch where the Praying Mantis perches; each bush where the pale Italian Cricket strums amid the calmness of the summer nights; each wad-clad blade of grass scraped by the Anthidium, that maker of cotton bags; each cluster of lilac worked by the Megachile, the leaf-cutter. If cruising among the nooks and corners of the garden do not suffice, a longer voyage shows ample profit. I double the cape of the neighbouring hedges and, at a few hundred yards, enter into relations with the Sacred Beetle, the Capricorn, the Geotrupe, the Copris, the Dectus, the Cricket, the Green Grasshopper, in short, with a host of tribes the unfolding of whose story would exhaust a human life. Certainly, I have plenty, I have too much to do with my near neighbours, without going and wandering in distant regions. And then, besides, roaming the world, scattering one’s attention over a host of subjects, is not observing. The travelling entomologist can stick numerous species, the joy of the collector and the nomenclator, into his boxes; but to gather circumstantial documents is a very different matter. A Wandering Jew of science, he has no time to stop. Where a prolonged stay would be necessary to study this or that fact, he is hurried by the next stage. We must not expect the impossible of him in these conditions. Let him pin his specimens to cork tablets, let him steep them in tafia jars and leave to the sedentary the patient observations that require time.[ ] 101 This explains the extreme penury of history outside the dry descriptions of the nomenclator. Overwhelming us with its numbers, the exotic insect nearly always preserves the secret of its manners. Nevertheless, it were well to compare what happens under our eyes with that which happens elsewhere; it were excellent to see how, in the same corporation of workers, the fundamental instinct varies with climatic conditions. Then my travelling regrets return, vainer to-day than ever, unless one could find a seat on the carpet of which we read in the Arabian Nights, the famous carpet whereon one had but to sit to be carried whithersoever he pleased. O marvellous conveyance, far preferable to Xavier de Maistre’s post-chaise! If only I could find a little corner on it, with a return-ticket! I do find it. I owe this unexpected good fortune to a Christian Brother, to Brother Judulian, of the Lasalle College at Buenos Ayres. His modesty would be offended by the praises which his debtor owes him. Let us simply say that, acting on my instructions, his eyes take the place of mine. He seeks, finds, observes, sends me his notes and his discoveries. I observe, seek and find with him, by correspondence. It is done: thanks to this first-rate collaborator, I have my seat on the magic carpet. Behold me in the pampas of the Argentine Republic, eager to draw a parallel between the industry of the Dung-beetles of Sérignan and that of their rivals in the western hemisphere. 2 A glorious beginning! An accidental find procures me, to start with, Phanæus Milo, a magnificent insect, blue-black all over. The corselet of the male juts forward, over the head, in a short, broad, flattened [ ]horn, ending in a trident. The female replaces this ornament with simple folds. Both carry, in front of their shield, two spikes which form a trusty digging-implement and also a scalpel for dissecting. The insect’s squat, sturdy, four-cornered build resembles that of Onitis Olivieri, one of the rarities of the neighbourhood of Montpellier. 102 If similarity of shape implied parity of work, we ought unhesitatingly to attribute to Phanæus Milo short, thick puddings like those made by Olivier’s Onitis. Alas, structure is a bad guide where the instinct is concerned! The square-chined, short-legged Dung-worker excels in the art of manufacturing gourds. The Sacred Beetle himself supplies none that are more perfect nor, above all, more capacious. Fig. 8.—Phanæus Milo. The thick-set insect astonishes me with the elegance of its work, which is irreproachable in its geometry: the neck is less slender, but nevertheless combines grace with strength. The model seems derived from some Indian calabash, the more so as the neck opens wide and the belly is engraved with an elegant guilloche, produced by the insect’s tarsi. One seems to see a pitcher protected by a wicker-work covering. The whole is able to attain and even exceed the size of a hen’s egg. It is a very curious piece of work and of a rare perfection, especially when we consider the artist’s clumsy and massive build. Once again, the tool does not make the [ ]workman, among Dung-beetles any more than among ourselves. To guide the modeller there is something better than a set of tools: there is what I would call the bump, the genius of the animal. 103 Phanæus Milo laughs at difficulties. He does more: he laughs at our classifications. The word Dung-beetle implies a lover of dung. He sets no value on it, either for his own use or for that of his offspring. What he wants is the sanies of corpses. He is to be found under the carcasses of birds, dogs or cats, in the company of the undertakers-in-ordinary. The gourd of which I give a drawing overleaf was lying in the earth under the remains of an owl. Let him who will explain this conjunction of the appetites of the Necrophore with the talents of the Scarab. As for me, baffled by tastes which no one would suspect from the mere appearance of the insect, I give it up. I know in my neighbourhood one Dung-beetle and one alone who also works among the remains of dead bodies. This is Onthophagus Ovatus (Lin.), a constant frequenter of dead moles and rabbits. But the dwarf undertaker does not on that account scorn stercoraceous fare: he feasts upon it like the other Onthophagi. Perhaps there is a two-fold diet here: the bun for the adult; the highly-spiced, far-gone meat for the grub. Similar facts are encountered elsewhere with different tastes. The predatory Hymenopteron takes her fill of honey drawn from the nectaries of the flowers, but feeds her little ones on game. Game first, then sugar, for the same stomach. How that digestive pouch must change on the road! And yet no more than our own, which scorns in later life that which delighted it when young. Fig. 9.—Work of Phanæus Milo. A, the whole piece, actual size. B, the same opened, showing the pill of sausage-meat, the clay gourd, the chamber containing the egg the ventilating-shaft. Let us now examine the work of Phanæus Milo [ ]more thoroughly. The calabashes came into my hands in a state of complete desiccation. They are very nearly as hard as stone; their colour favours a pale chocolate. Neither inside nor out does the lens discover the small fibrous particle pointing to a residuum of grasses. The strange Dung-beetle does not, therefore, employ the bovine cakes, nor anything similar; he handles products of another class, which are pretty difficult to specify at first. 104 Held to the ear and shaken, the object sounds a little as would the shell of a dry fruit with a stone lying free inside it. Does it contain the grub, shrivelled by desiccation? Does it contain the dead insect? I thought so, [ ]but I was wrong. It contains something much better than that for our instruction. 105 I carefully rip up the gourd with the point of the knife. Under a homogeneous outer wall, the thickness of which reaches as much as two centimetres in the largest of my three specimens, is encased a spherical kernel, which fills the cavity exactly, but without sticking to the wall at any part. The trifle of free scope allowed to this kernel accounts for the rattling which I heard when shaking the piece. 3 The kernel does not differ from the wrapper in the colour and general appearance of its bulk. But let us break it and examine the shreds. I recognize tiny fragments of gold, flocks of down, threads of wool, scraps of meat, the whole drowned in an earthy paste resembling chocolate. Placed on a glowing coal, this paste, shredded under the lens and deprived of its particles of dead bodies, becomes much darker, is covered with shiny bubbles and sends forth puffs of that acrid smoke in which we easily recognize burnt animal matter. The whole mass of the kernel, therefore, is strongly impregnated with sanies. Treated in the same manner, the wrapper also turns dark, but not to the same extent; it hardly smokes; it is not covered with jet-black bubbles; lastly, it does not anywhere contain shreds of carcasses similar to those in the central nut. In both cases, the residuum of the calcination is a fine, reddish clay. This brief analysis tells us all about Phanæus Milo’s table. The fare served to the grub is a sort of vol-au-vent. The sausage-meat consists of a mince of all that the two scalpels of the shield and the toothed knives of the fore-legs have been able to cut away from the carcass: [ ]hair and down, crushed ossicles, strips of flesh and skin. Now hard as brick, the thickening of that mince was originally a jelly of fine clay soaked in the juice of corruption. Lastly, the puff-paste crust of our vol-au-vent is here represented by a covering of the same clay, less rich in extract of meat than the other. 106 The pastry-cook gives his pie an elegant shape; he decorates it with rosettes, with twists, with scrolls. Phanæus Milo is no stranger to these culinary æsthetics. He turns the crust of his vol-au-vent into a handsome gourd, ornamented with a finger-print guilloche. The outer covering, a disagreeable crust, insufficiently steeped in savoury juices, is not, we can easily guess, intended for consumption. It is possible that, somewhat later, when the stomach becomes robust and is not repelled by coarse fare, the grub scrapes a little from the wall of its pie; but, taken as a whole, until the adult insect emerges, the calabash remains intact, having acted as a safeguard of the freshness of the mince-meat at first and as a protecting box for the recluse from start to finish. Above the cold pasty, right at the base of the neck of the gourd, is contrived a round cell with a clay wall continuing the general wall. A fairly thick floor, made of the same material, separates it from the store-room. It is the hatching-chamber. Here is laid the egg, which I find in its place, but dried up; here is hatched the worm, which, to reach the nourishing ball, must previously open a trap-door through the partition separating the two storeys. The worm is born in a little box surmounting the nourishing pile, but not communicating with it. The budding grub must, therefore, at the opportune moment, itself pierce the covering of the pot of preserves. As a [ ]matter of fact, later, when the worm is on the sausage-meat, we find the floor perforated with a hole just large enough for it to pass through. 107 Wrapped all round in a thick casing of pottery, the meat keeps fresh as long as is required by the duration of the hatching-process, a detail which I have not ascertained; in its cell, which is also of clay, the egg lies safe. Capital: so far, all is well. Phanæus Milo is thoroughly acquainted with the mysteries of fortification and the danger of victuals evaporating too soon. There remain the breathing requirements of the germ. To satisfy these, the insect has been equally well-inspired. The neck of the calabash is pierced, in the direction of its axis, with a tiny channel which would admit at most the thinnest of straws. Inside, this conduit opens at the top of the dome of the hatching-chamber; outside, at the tip of the nipple, it spreads into a wide mouth-piece. This is the ventilating-shaft, protected against intruders by its extreme narrowness and by grains of dust which obstruct it a little, without stopping it up. It is simply marvellous, I said. Was I wrong? If a construction of this sort is a fortuitous result, we must admit that blind chance is gifted with extraordinary foresight. How does the awkward insect manage to carry so delicate and complex a piece of building through? Exploring the pampas as I do through the eyes of an intermediary, my only guide in this question is the structure of the work, a structure whence we can deduct the workman’s methods without going far wrong. I therefore imagine the labour to proceed like this: a small carcass is found, the oozing of which has softened the underlying loam. The insect collects more or less of this loam, [ ]according to the richness of the vein. There are no precise limits here. If the plastic material abound, the collector is lavish with it and the provision-box becomes all the more solid. Then enormous calabashes are obtained, exceeding a hen’s egg in volume and formed of an outer wall a couple of centimetres thick. But a mass of this description is beyond the strength of the modeller, is badly handled and betrays, in its outline, the clumsiness of an over-difficult task. If the material be rare, the insect confines its harvesting to what is strictly necessary; and then, freer in its movements, it obtains a magnificently regular gourd. 108 4 Fig. 10.—Work of Phanæus Milo: the largest of the gourds observed (natural size). The loam is probably first kneaded into a ball and then scooped out into a large and very thick cup, by means of the pressure of the fore-legs and the work of the shield. [ ]Even thus do the Copris and the Sacred Beetle act when preparing, on the top of their round ball, the bowl in which the egg will be laid before the final manipulation of the ovoid or pear. 109 In this first business, Phanæus is simply a potter. So long as it be plastic, any clay serves his turn, however meagrely it be saturated with the juices emanating from the carcass. He now becomes a pork-butcher. With his toothed knife, he carves, he saws some tiny shreds from the rotten animal; he tears off, cuts away what he deems best suited to the grub’s entertainment. He collects all these fragments and mixes them with choice loam in the spots where the sanies abounds. The whole, cunningly kneaded and softened, becomes a ball obtained on the spot, without any rolling process, in the same way as the globe of the other pill-manufacturers. Let us add that this ball, a ration calculated by the needs of the grub, is very nearly constant in size, whatever the thickness of the final calabash. The sausage-meat is now ready. It is set in place in the wide-open clay bowl. Loosely packed, without compression, the food will remain free, will not stick to its wrapper. Next, the potter’s work is renewed. The insect presses the thick lips of the clayey cup, rolls them out and applies them to the forcemeat preparation, which is eventually contained by a thin partition at the top and by a thick layer every elsewhere. A large circular pad is left on the top partition, which is slender in view of the weakness of the grub that is to perforate it later, when making for the provisions. Manipulated in its turn, this pad is converted into a hemispherical hollow, in which the egg is forthwith laid.[ ] 110 The work is finished by rolling out and joining the edges of the little crater, which closes and becomes the hatching-chamber. Here, especially, a delicate dexterity becomes essential. At the time that the nipple of the calabash is being shaped, the insect, while packing the material, must leave the little channel which is to form the ventilating-shaft, following the line of the axis. This narrow conduit, which an ill-calculated pressure might stop up beyond hope of remedy, seems to me extremely difficult to obtain. The most skilful of our potters could not manage it without the aid of a needle, which he would afterwards withdraw. The insect, a sort of jointed automaton, obtains its channel through the massive nipple of the gourd without so much as a thought. If it did give it a thought, it would not succeed. The calabash is made: there remains the decoration. This is the work of patient after-touches which perfect the curves and leave on the soft loam a series of stippled impressions similar to those which the potter of prehistoric days distributed with the end of his thumb over his big-bellied jars. That ends the work. The insect will begin all over again under a fresh carcass; for each burrow has one calabash and no more, even as with the Sacred Beetle and her pears. 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). The Life and Love of the Insect. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/68974/pg68974-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 .

A DUNG-BEETLE OF THE PAMPAS

THE POPLAR-WEEVIL

THE AMMOPHILÆ

More Beetles by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE DWARFS CHAPTER XI. THE DWARFS A Provençal proverb says: “Chasque toupin trobo sa cubercello; Chasque badan, sa badarello.” It is true; every pot finds its lid, every Jack his Jill. The hunchbacked, the blind, the bandy-legged, the physically or morally deformed: one and all have their attractions which render them acceptable in certain eyes. Insects too, no less than men and stew-pans, always find their natural complement, though it mate the faultless with the faulty. Of this Minotaurus Typhœus furnishes a splendid example. The hazards of excavation present me with a curious couple, keeping house at the bottom of a burrow. The female calls for no special remark: she is just a handsome matron. But the male! What a sorry creature, what an abortion! The middle point of his trident is reduced to a mere spiked granule; those at the side come just level with the eyes, whereas in normal subjects they reach the extreme point of the head. I measure the little beggar. His length is twelve millimetres instead of eighteen, the ordinary size. According to these figures, the dwarf is barely a quarter of the usual bulk. 1 2 In an earlier chapter of the present volume, I mentioned a magnificent male Minotaur who was obstinately refused by the consort whom my experiments had given him. The handsome horn-bearer did not leave the burrow; the other, despite my frequent interventions to restore harmony in the household, deserted her home nightly and sought to set up house elsewhere. I had to give her another partner; the one that I had thrust upon her did not suit her. If the male endowed with a generous stature and trident is often refused, how did the miserable specimen under consideration win the affections of his powerful mate? The unequal associations are doubtless to be explained among the Dung-beetles as among ourselves: love is blind. Would this ill-assorted pair have bred? And would one part of the family have inherited the noble dimensions of the mother and the other the stunted dimensions of the father? Not possessing, at the moment, a suitable apparatus, that is to say, a tall column of earth held between four planks, I lodged my Beetles in the longest test-tube among my entomological glass-ware, with moist sand and victuals at their disposal. At first, all went according to rule, the mother digging and the father clearing away the rubbish. A few droppings were stored; then, on reaching the bottom of the test-tube, the couple pined away and died. The layer of sand was not deep enough. Before piling the food-sausage on top of an egg, the pair needed a shaft at least forty inches in depth, whereas they had only some eighteen inches to dig in. This failure did not put an end to my list of questions. Where did that pigmy spring from? Was he the outcome of a special predisposition, transmitted by heredity? Or was he descended from another dwarf, who himself proceeded from a similar abortion? Was his deficiency merely an accident, which had nothing to do with heredity, an individual littleness not transmissible from father to son? I incline to the theory of an accident. But what sort of accident? I can think of only one liable to diminish the size without injuring the type: I mean, a lack of sufficient food. We argue thus: animals virtually take shape in a mould whose capacity may be extended in proportion to the amount of molten substance which the crucible pours into it. If this mould receives only the strictly necessary amount, the result is a dwarf. Anything beneath this minimum means death by starvation; anything above it, in doses which increase but are soon limited, means a prosperous life and a normal or slightly larger size. The bulk is decided by plus or minus quantities of food. If logic be not a vain delusion, it is therefore possible to obtain dwarfs at will. All that we need do is to diminish the provisions to the lowest limits compatible with the maintenance of life. On the other hand, we cannot hope to make giants by increasing the ration, for a moment comes when the stomach refuses any excess of food. Natural necessities may be likened to a series of rungs of which the one at the top cannot be passed, while it is quite practicable to stand higher or lower on those near the bottom. First of all we must discover the regular ration. The majority of insects have none. The larva grows up amidst an indeterminate supply of victuals; it eats as it pleases and as much as it pleases, with no other check than its appetite. Others, those most richly endowed in maternal qualities such as the Dung-beetles and the Bees and Wasps, prepare definite rations of preserved food, neither too large nor too small. The Bee stores up in receptacles of clay, cement, resin, cotton or leaf-cuttings just the right amount of honey for a larva’s welfare; and, as she knows the sex of the future insects, she puts a little more at the service of the grubs that are to become females and will be slightly larger and a little less at the service of the grubs that are to become males and therefore will be smaller. In like manner, the Hunting Wasps dole out their game according to the sex of the nurslings. It is now a long time since I did my utmost to upset the mother’s wise previsions by taking food from the wealthy grubs to increase the store of the poor. In this way I obtained some slight modifications of size, to which the terms giant and dwarf could not, however, be applied; still less did I succeed in changing the sex, whose determination does not in any way depend upon the quantity of food supplied. The Bees and Wasps are not suited to my present purpose. Their grubs are too delicately constituted. What I want is sturdy stomachs capable of enduring severe ordeals. I shall find them in the Dung-beetles, notably in the Sacred Beetle, whose natural portliness will facilitate our appreciation of any change of bulk. The big pill-roller calculates the food of her larvæ precisely: each grub has its loaf, kneaded into the shape of a pear. All these loaves are not strictly equal; some are larger and some smaller, but the difference is only minute. Perhaps these slight inequalities are connected with the sex of the nurslings, as among the Bees and Wasps; the females would receive the larger and the males the smaller rations. I did not take any steps to verify this theory. No matter: the fact remains that the Sacred Beetle’s pear is, in the mother’s opinion, a convenient individual ration. As for me, I can, if I please, alter the size of the loaf, increasing or decreasing it at will. Let us first consider the decrease. In May, I procure four recent pears, containing the egg in the chamber of the terminal nipple. By making an equatorial section, I cut off the hinder half, in the shape of a large spherical cap; the other half, surmounted by its neck, I retain; and I place the four egg-bearing portions in as many small jars, in which there is no danger of either desiccation or excessive damp. With these provisions decreased by half, development takes place as usual; then two of the grubs die, apparently the victims of defective hygiene: my jars are not equal to the burrows, with their pleasant moisture. The two others are still in good condition, ever ready to plug with dung the window which I cut through the wall of the cell when I wish to inspect them. At the end of the active period, I find them remarkably small in comparison with those of their fellows who have been left in possession of the whole pear. The effect of insufficient food is already manifest. What will it be in the perfect insect? In September there emerge from the shells adults such as my hunts in the meadows never yielded, dwarfs, hardly larger than a thumbnail, but correctly shaped in every other respect. Let me quote some exact figures. Each of them measures nineteen millimetres from the edge of the clypeus to the tip of the abdomen. The smallest specimen in my boxes, as the freedom of the fields made him, measures twenty-six. The products of my experiments, fed upon half rations, are therefore only half the bulk of the normal Beetle chosen from among the smallest. This is also approximately the ratio between the full and the reduced diet. The extensible mould of the organism has reproduced the proportion of the substance at its disposal. 3 4 My intervention has just created dwarfs; treatment by starvation has given me abortions. I am not excessively proud of it, though I am glad to have learned by experiment that dwarfishness, at all events in the insects, is not a matter of predisposition and heredity but a mere accident caused by deficient nourishment. What then had happened to the little Minotaur who suggested these experiments in starvation? Assuredly a deficiency of food. Though expert in the art of rationing, the mother was unable to complete the sausage over the egg, perhaps because the materials were lacking, or because some inopportune incident interrupted her work; and the grub, scantily fed, though strong enough to withstand a not too rigorous diet, was unable to acquire the wherewithal to provide the adult with the amount of substance needed for the normal size. This seems to be the whole secret of the tiny Minotaur. He was a child of poverty. While privation reduces the size, it does not follow that unlimited abundance is able to increase it very notably. In vain do I provide the grubs of the Sacred Beetle with an extra allowance of food that doubles or trebles the ration supplied by the mother. My boarders do not attain a growth worth mentioning. As they leave the maternal pears, so do they leave the plentiful messes which my spatula has mixed for them. And this must be so: the appetite has its limits, which, once reached, leave the consumer indifferent to the luxuries of the table. It is not in our power to make giants by means of an excess of food. When the grub has gorged to the required degree, it ceases to eat. There are nevertheless giants among the Sacred Beetles. I have some that came from Ajaccio and Algeria and measure thirty-four millimetres in length. By comparing this figure with those already given, we see that, if the size of the dwarfs obtained by fasting is represented by the figure 1, that of the Sacred Beetle of the Sérignan district is expressed by 2 and that of the Corsican and African Beetles by 5. 5 To produce these latter, these giants, it is evident that a more generous diet is needed. Whence comes this increase of appetite? We whet ours with condiments. The insect may well have condiments of its own, for instance, as regards the Sacred Beetle, the pepper of the sea-breezes and the mustard of a generous sun. Such, it seems to me, are the causes which augment the dimensions of the African Scarabæus and reduce those of his Sérignan kinsman. As I have not these two appetizers, the sea and the sun, at my disposal, I give up the idea of making giants by an excess of victuals. Let us now try the larvæ which, not being rationed by the mother, have unlimited abundance at their disposal. Among them are the larvæ of Cetonia floricola, Herbst, living in heaps of decomposing leaves. I shall certainly never obtain giants from these by resorting to the artifice of a copious diet! In a corner of my garden they swarm in a heap of rotten leaves, where they find the wherewithal to satisfy their gluttonous appetites to the full, without having to hunt for it; and yet I never find an adult whose dimensions are ever so little exaggerated. To make him exceed the usual proportions it is probable that better climatic conditions are necessary, as in the case of the Sacred Beetle, conditions of which I know nothing and which, moreover, I should be unable to realize. Only one experiment lies within my power, that of starvation. At the beginning of April, I take three batches of larvæ of Cetonia floricola chosen from among those most fully developed and therefore liable to undergo their transformation during the course of the summer. At this April season the great hunger sets in which doubles the size of the grub and amasses the reserves needed for the elaboration of the adult. The three batches are installed in large tin boxes, carefully closed, in which there is no danger of too rapid desiccation. The first batch consists of twelve grubs, which are given an abundance of food, renewed as the need arises. My prisoners could not be better off in the heap of leaf-mould, their favourite resort. Side by side with this gastric paradise, a second tin, a very inferno of starvation, receives a dozen larvæ kept absolutely without food. It is furnished—as, for that matter, are the others—with a litter of droppings, enabling the famished creatures to wander about or bury themselves at will. Lastly, the third batch, likewise twelve in number, receives from time to time a scanty pinch of rotten leaves, enough at most to beguile their mandibles for a moment. Three or four months go by and, when the torrid heats of July have come, the first tin gives me the perfect insect. Its development has been accomplished without a check: the twelve grubs are succeeded by twelve magnificent Cetoniæ, resembling at all points those who sip and slumber in the roses when the spring comes. This result convinces me that the defects attaching to rearing in confinement have nothing to do with what remains to be told. The second tin, in which strict abstinence is enforced, provides me with two chrysalids, whose diminished size indicates the presence of dwarfs. I wait until the middle of September to open these caskets, which remained closed when those in the first tin burst, two months ago. Their persistent refusal to split open is explained: each of them contains nothing but a dead larva. Absolute starvation was too much for the grubs’ endurance. Of the twelve kept without food, ten shrivelled up and eventually died; only two managed to wrap themselves in a shell, by gluing the droppings round about in the usual way. This was their last effort. The two grubs, incapable of performing the consummate labour of the nymphosis, perished in their turn. Lastly, in the third tin, where victuals were very sparingly provided, eleven grubs out of twelve died, worn out with privation. One only has enclosed itself in a cocoon, which is correctly made but very much reduced in size. If there is a living insect within, it can only be a dwarf. In the middle of September, I open the cabin myself, for there is nothing yet, at this late period, to announce an impending natural fracture. The contents fill me with delight. They consist of a Cetonia, alive and kicking, all brilliant with metallic gleams and streaked with a few white stripes, like those of the species who have developed freely in the great heap of earth-mould. The shape and costume are not altered in any respect. As for size, that is another matter. I have before my eyes a pigmy, a little gem more exquisite than any collector ever found on the blossoming hawthorns. From the edge of the clypeus to the tips of the wing-cases this creature of my artificial devices measures thirteen millimetres, no more. The insect would have measured twenty millimetres if the grub had been properly fed, far away from my famine-stricken tins. From these figures we deduce that the dwarf’s bulk is about one-fourth of what it would have become normally, without my interference. 6 7 Of the twenty-four larvæ subjected, during three or four months, some to an absolute fast and others to a diet of meagre mouthfuls administered at long intervals, one only reached the adult form. The bad effects of abstinence are far-reaching and the pigmy still feels them. Though the season when the caskets should have split had long gone by, he had made no attempt to free himself. Perhaps he had not the necessary strength. I myself had to break open the cell. Now that he is free and revelling in the light, he kicks and struggles and starts running, if I tease him at all; but he prefers to rest. One would think that he was overwhelmed by an insurmountable lassitude. I know how gluttonously the Cetoniæ attack fruit at this warm season, gorging themselves upon the sweet pulp. I give my dwarf a piece of juicy fig. He does not touch it, preferring to doze. Is it not yet time for him to eat, after his forcible liberation? Was the recluse intended to spend the winter in his shell before tasting the joys but also risking the dangers of the outer world? It may be so. At any rate this curious little creature, the small Cetonia, reduced to one-fourth of the regulation size, repeats what the Sacred Beetle but now taught us in a less conclusive fashion, that, among the insects and very likely elsewhere, dwarfishness is the result of incomplete nutrition and not in any way the effect of predisposition. Let us suppose an impossible case, or at least one extremely difficult to realize; let us imagine that, having obtained by starvation a few couples of Cetoniæ, we were able to keep them alive under favourable conditions. Would they found a family? And what would their offspring be like? The insect, in all probability, would not reply to our question, even though entreated by long perseverance; but the plant answers us readily. On the paths in my two acres of pebbles, at spots where a little moisture lingers, there grows in April a familiar plant, the whitlow grass (Draba verna, Lin.). There is but little nourishment in this ungrateful trodden soil, hard with gravel, and the whitlow grass may be regarded as the equivalent of my famished Cetoniæ. From a flat pattern of sickly leaves rises a single stem, no thicker than a hair, barely an inch in height and with few ramifications or none, which nevertheless ripens its silicles, often reduced to one alone. Here, in short, I have a little garden of dwarf plants, the children of dearth. My experiments in starvation were far from obtaining such results with the Sacred Beetle and the Cetonia. I collect the seeds from the heads of the sickliest of these plants and sow them in good soil. Next spring, the dwarfishness disappears at once; the direct descendants of the abortive plants produce ample radiating patterns, multiple stalks reaching to a height of four inches or more and numerous ramifications, rich in silicles. The normal condition has returned. If they had had enough energy to procreate their species, my dwarf insects, resulting from my artifices or from a casual concourse of enfeebling circumstances, would do as much. They would repeat what the whitlow grass has told us: that dwarfishness is an accident which heredity does not hand down, any more than it hands down knock-knees, or bow-legs, or the hunchback’s hump or the stump of the one-armed cripple. 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). More Beetles. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67201/pg67201-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 .

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