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Solstice

solstice

THE EVENING SKY AT THE WINTER SOLSTICE

THE EVENING SKY AT THE SUMMER SOLSTICE

THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO

It was the annual Solstice party at Wunderland Games, and I was especially excited to give my team a taste of old-school gaming magic. The star of the evening was the legendary Caroline, an interactive fiction pioneer who was going to showcase her retro text-based creations. Her passion had first inspired me years ago through the story of a young developer named Luna. Luna was a shy backend coder without much experience in game design. But she dreamed up the most wondrous text adventure ideas and would excitedly tell her friends about them. Most just laughed and told Luna to focus on “real” games with fancy graphics and sound. But Luna believed in the power of words and imagination, so she kept tinkering after hours on a passion project - a quirky text adventure she coded up on a terminal. It wasn't much to look at, just glowing green words on a black screen. But the world she conjured up was wildly creative. One day, veteran developer Gail happened to see Luna’s little game. She was utterly charmed by the ingenuity of the storytelling and gameplay. Thanks to Gail’s mentorship, Luna's text game became a cult hit, though she remained largely unknown. I was just starting out back then, but Luna’s story inspired me - proof that coding magic happens when you embrace creativity and imagination over industry norms. I vowed that if I ever ran a studio, I would champion provocative visions over profit-chasing. So when I became CEO of Wunderland Games, I recruited the legendary Caroline to help recapture the spirit of those text adventure pioneers like Luna. Caroline was delighted to accept. We planned an interactive showcase of her retro games for the annual holiday party. The office was buzzing with activity and laughter as we put the finishing touches on the decorations. Pixel art snowflakes and strings of 8-bit Christmas lights gave the space a deliciously retro vibe. The centerpiece was our huge Douglas fir Christmas tree, overflowing with gaudy 80's video game ornaments. I checked my watch. 5:15 pm. Caroline should've arrived by now for setup and rehearsal. Where was she? I felt a twinge of panic. Her interactive demo was meant to be the highlight of the whole evening! Just then, my phone rang. It was Caroline, speaking in a rush. "Bob! I'm so sorry, I'm running late. I'll be there in 15 minutes. Please stall for me!" she said breathlessly. I reassured her it was fine, we'll make it work. But inside, I was worried. This wasn't like Caroline to be late on such an important day. Right on cue at 5:30 pm, the doors opened and my team streamed in, laughing, trading gifts, and admiring the decor. The scent of fresh gingerbread and cinnamon wafted from the buffet. But still no sign of Caroline. I quietly asked someone to keep stalling as I slipped away to Caroline's demo room to check on things. Maybe she had arrived and was frantically getting set up? But when I entered the room, it was still and dark, empty except for a lone computer terminal glowing in the corner. Where was she? Just then my phone buzzed. It was Caroline, whispering. "I'm here but my codes got corrupted! I can't access my presentation. I'm so sorry..." She sounded near tears. My heart sank. After all this planning and anticipation, Caroline's big interactive demo wasn't going to happen. The team would be so disappointed. Then Caroline's face lit up and just winked conspiratorially. "Leave it to me, I’ll improvise something ten times better!" she whispered with a twinkle in her eye. I didn't know what she had up her sleeve, but I trusted her creative spirit absolutely. I hurried back to the party and grabbed the mic. "Sorry for the delay, everyone. I have a very special guest who's going to take you on an old-school adventure! Let's give a warm welcome to the legendary Caroline!" Right on cue, Caroline rushed onto the stage, slightly flustered but beaming. "Hi folks! So it seems technology has failed us tonight, but the human imagination never fails! Let's journey back to the magical days of text-based adventures. I'll be the computer, and you tell me what to do!" She turned to face the audience expectantly. They tittered, not quite sure what to do. "Come now, don't be shy! You there, in the holiday sweater - what's your name?" Caroline asked warmly. "Oh, I'm Susan." "Nice to meet you, Susan! What's your first command for me?" "Um, look around the room?" Susan offered tentatively. Caroline smiled delightedly. "Excellent! You look around the festively decorated room. Pixel art snowflakes twinkle down from the rafters, and the giant Christmas tree glows with 8-bit ornaments..." As Caroline brought the setting to life, people relaxed. Another person called out, "Open the present under the tree!" Caroline rolled with their idea. "You open the present and find a rare crystal orb, which begins to glow..." The audience oohed. Now they were getting into it, each building on the last. When someone yelled out, "Use the candy cane as a sword!" Caroline acted it out, getting laughs. Soon Caroline was effortlessly weaving each suggestion into an increasingly complex, fantastical world. Every detail she inventively improvised inspired new ideas from the crowd. As Caroline immersed the audience in her storytelling, I watched in awe from the sidelines. Her imaginative improv was far more engaging than any polished presentation could have been. The team hung on her every word, offering their input, laughing together. Caroline's passion was electric. Every new detail she conjured up made the world come more alive. I was transported back to those late nights as a kid, hunched over the glowing green terminal, getting lost in text worlds far more magical than reality. Time flew by in a blaze of laughter and curiosity. As Caroline brought the story to an uplifting conclusion, the room erupted in thunderous applause. She turned to me, eyes shining. "Thank you," she mouthed silently. I just smiled and nodded. No words were needed. The magic unfolding onstage said it all. As I looked around at the team's faces - delighted, inspired, connected - I knew my speech was pointless now. Caroline had already conveyed everything I yearned to say, and so much more. Her story was a gift from the heart that touched that childlike spark of imagination in all of us. As CEO, it was my job to provide direction to the team. But sometimes the best leadership is knowing when to step back and let creativity carry the torch instead. [Parts of this story were written using AI tools]

Ctrl, Alt, Imagine

Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea by Jules Verne, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book . THE SOUTH POLE here CHAPTER XIV: THE SOUTH POLE I rushed on to the platform. Yes! the open sea, with but a few scattered pieces of ice and moving icebergs—a long stretch of sea; a world of birds in the air, and myriads of fishes under those waters, which varied from intense blue to olive green, according to the bottom. The thermometer marked 3° C. above zero. It was comparatively spring, shut up as we were behind this iceberg, whose lengthened mass was dimly seen on our northern horizon. “Are we at the pole?” I asked the Captain, with a beating heart. “I do not know,” he replied. “At noon I will take our bearings.” “But will the sun show himself through this fog?” said I, looking at the leaden sky. “However little it shows, it will be enough,” replied the Captain. About ten miles south a solitary island rose to a height of one hundred and four yards. We made for it, but carefully, for the sea might be strewn with banks. One hour afterwards we had reached it, two hours later we had made the round of it. It measured four or five miles in circumference. A narrow canal separated it from a considerable stretch of land, perhaps a continent, for we could not see its limits. The existence of this land seemed to give some colour to Maury’s theory. The ingenious American has remarked that, between the South Pole and the sixtieth parallel, the sea is covered with floating ice of enormous size, which is never met with in the North Atlantic. From this fact he has drawn the conclusion that the Antarctic Circle encloses considerable continents, as icebergs cannot form in open sea, but only on the coasts. According to these calculations, the mass of ice surrounding the southern pole forms a vast cap, the circumference of which must be, at least, 2,500 miles. But the , for fear of running aground, had stopped about three cable-lengths from a strand over which reared a superb heap of rocks. The boat was launched; the Captain, two of his men, bearing instruments, Conseil, and myself were in it. It was ten in the morning. I had not seen Ned Land. Doubtless the Canadian did not wish to admit the presence of the South Pole. A few strokes of the oar brought us to the sand, where we ran ashore. Conseil was going to jump on to the land, when I held him back. Nautilus “Sir,” said I to Captain Nemo, “to you belongs the honour of first setting foot on this land.” “Yes, sir,” said the Captain, “and if I do not hesitate to tread this South Pole, it is because, up to this time, no human being has left a trace there.” Saying this, he jumped lightly on to the sand. His heart beat with emotion. He climbed a rock, sloping to a little promontory, and there, with his arms crossed, mute and motionless, and with an eager look, he seemed to take possession of these southern regions. After five minutes passed in this ecstasy, he turned to us. “When you like, sir.” I landed, followed by Conseil, leaving the two men in the boat. For a long way the soil was composed of a reddish sandy stone, something like crushed brick, scoriae, streams of lava, and pumice-stones. One could not mistake its volcanic origin. In some parts, slight curls of smoke emitted a sulphurous smell, proving that the internal fires had lost nothing of their expansive powers, though, having climbed a high acclivity, I could see no volcano for a radius of several miles. We know that in those Antarctic countries, James Ross found two craters, the Erebus and Terror, in full activity, on the 167th meridian, latitude 77° 32′. The vegetation of this desolate continent seemed to me much restricted. Some lichens lay upon the black rocks; some microscopic plants, rudimentary diatomas, a kind of cells placed between two quartz shells; long purple and scarlet weed, supported on little swimming bladders, which the breaking of the waves brought to the shore. These constituted the meagre flora of this region. The shore was strewn with molluscs, little mussels, and limpets. I also saw myriads of northern clios, one-and-a-quarter inches long, of which a whale would swallow a whole world at a mouthful; and some perfect sea-butterflies, animating the waters on the skirts of the shore. There appeared on the high bottoms some coral shrubs, of the kind which, according to James Ross, live in the Antarctic seas to the depth of more than 1,000 yards. Then there were little kingfishers and starfish studding the soil. But where life abounded most was in the air. There thousands of birds fluttered and flew of all kinds, deafening us with their cries; others crowded the rock, looking at us as we passed by without fear, and pressing familiarly close by our feet. There were penguins, so agile in the water, heavy and awkward as they are on the ground; they were uttering harsh cries, a large assembly, sober in gesture, but extravagant in clamour. Albatrosses passed in the air, the expanse of their wings being at least four yards and a half, and justly called the vultures of the ocean; some gigantic petrels, and some damiers, a kind of small duck, the underpart of whose body is black and white; then there were a whole series of petrels, some whitish, with brown-bordered wings, others blue, peculiar to the Antarctic seas, and so oily, as I told Conseil, that the inhabitants of the Ferroe Islands had nothing to do before lighting them but to put a wick in. “A little more,” said Conseil, “and they would be perfect lamps! After that, we cannot expect Nature to have previously furnished them with wicks!” About half a mile farther on the soil was riddled with ruffs’ nests, a sort of laying-ground, out of which many birds were issuing. Captain Nemo had some hundreds hunted. They uttered a cry like the braying of an ass, were about the size of a goose, slate-colour on the body, white beneath, with a yellow line round their throats; they allowed themselves to be killed with a stone, never trying to escape. But the fog did not lift, and at eleven the sun had not yet shown itself. Its absence made me uneasy. Without it no observations were possible. How, then, could we decide whether we had reached the pole? When I rejoined Captain Nemo, I found him leaning on a piece of rock, silently watching the sky. He seemed impatient and vexed. But what was to be done? This rash and powerful man could not command the sun as he did the sea. Noon arrived without the orb of day showing itself for an instant. We could not even tell its position behind the curtain of fog; and soon the fog turned to snow. “Till to-morrow,” said the Captain, quietly, and we returned to the amid these atmospheric disturbances. Nautilus The tempest of snow continued till the next day. It was impossible to remain on the platform. From the saloon, where I was taking notes of incidents happening during this excursion to the polar continent, I could hear the cries of petrels and albatrosses sporting in the midst of this violent storm. The did not remain motionless, but skirted the coast, advancing ten miles more to the south in the half-light left by the sun as it skirted the edge of the horizon. The next day, the 20th of March, the snow had ceased. The cold was a little greater, the thermometer showing 2° below zero. The fog was rising, and I hoped that that day our observations might be taken. Captain Nemo not having yet appeared, the boat took Conseil and myself to land. The soil was still of the same volcanic nature; everywhere were traces of lava, scoriae, and basalt; but the crater which had vomited them I could not see. Here, as lower down, this continent was alive with myriads of birds. But their rule was now divided with large troops of sea-mammals, looking at us with their soft eyes. There were several kinds of seals, some stretched on the earth, some on flakes of ice, many going in and out of the sea. They did not flee at our approach, never having had anything to do with man; and I reckoned that there were provisions there for hundreds of vessels. Nautilus “Sir,” said Conseil, “will you tell me the names of these creatures?” “They are seals and morses.” It was now eight in the morning. Four hours remained to us before the sun could be observed with advantage. I directed our steps towards a vast bay cut in the steep granite shore. There, I can aver that earth and ice were lost to sight by the numbers of sea-mammals covering them, and I involuntarily sought for old Proteus, the mythological shepherd who watched these immense flocks of Neptune. There were more seals than anything else, forming distinct groups, male and female, the father watching over his family, the mother suckling her little ones, some already strong enough to go a few steps. When they wished to change their place, they took little jumps, made by the contraction of their bodies, and helped awkwardly enough by their imperfect fin, which, as with the lamantin, their cousins, forms a perfect forearm. I should say that, in the water, which is their element—the spine of these creatures is flexible; with smooth and close skin and webbed feet—they swim admirably. In resting on the earth they take the most graceful attitudes. Thus the ancients, observing their soft and expressive looks, which cannot be surpassed by the most beautiful look a woman can give, their clear voluptuous eyes, their charming positions, and the poetry of their manners, metamorphosed them, the male into a triton and the female into a mermaid. I made Conseil notice the considerable development of the lobes of the brain in these interesting cetaceans. No mammal, except man, has such a quantity of brain matter; they are also capable of receiving a certain amount of education, are easily domesticated, and I think, with other naturalists, that if properly taught they would be of great service as fishing-dogs. The greater part of them slept on the rocks or on the sand. Amongst these seals, properly so called, which have no external ears (in which they differ from the otter, whose ears are prominent), I noticed several varieties of seals about three yards long, with a white coat, bulldog heads, armed with teeth in both jaws, four incisors at the top and four at the bottom, and two large canine teeth in the shape of a fleur-de-lis. Amongst them glided sea-elephants, a kind of seal, with short, flexible trunks. The giants of this species measured twenty feet round and ten yards and a half in length; but they did not move as we approached. “These creatures are not dangerous?” asked Conseil. “No; not unless you attack them. When they have to defend their young their rage is terrible, and it is not uncommon for them to break the fishing-boats to pieces.” “They are quite right,” said Conseil. “I do not say they are not.” Two miles farther on we were stopped by the promontory which shelters the bay from the southerly winds. Beyond it we heard loud bellowings such as a troop of ruminants would produce. “Good!” said Conseil; “a concert of bulls!” “No; a concert of morses.” “They are fighting!” “They are either fighting or playing.” We now began to climb the blackish rocks, amid unforeseen stumbles, and over stones which the ice made slippery. More than once I rolled over at the expense of my loins. Conseil, more prudent or more steady, did not stumble, and helped me up, saying: “If, sir, you would have the kindness to take wider steps, you would preserve your equilibrium better.” Arrived at the upper ridge of the promontory, I saw a vast white plain covered with morses. They were playing amongst themselves, and what we heard were bellowings of pleasure, not of anger. As I passed these curious animals I could examine them leisurely, for they did not move. Their skins were thick and rugged, of a yellowish tint, approaching to red; their hair was short and scant. Some of them were four yards and a quarter long. Quieter and less timid than their cousins of the north, they did not, like them, place sentinels round the outskirts of their encampment. After examining this city of morses, I began to think of returning. It was eleven o’clock, and, if Captain Nemo found the conditions favourable for observations, I wished to be present at the operation. We followed a narrow pathway running along the summit of the steep shore. At half-past eleven we had reached the place where we landed. The boat had run aground, bringing the Captain. I saw him standing on a block of basalt, his instruments near him, his eyes fixed on the northern horizon, near which the sun was then describing a lengthened curve. I took my place beside him, and waited without speaking. Noon arrived, and, as before, the sun did not appear. It was a fatality. Observations were still wanting. If not accomplished to-morrow, we must give up all idea of taking any. We were indeed exactly at the 20th of March. To-morrow, the 21st, would be the equinox; the sun would disappear behind the horizon for six months, and with its disappearance the long polar night would begin. Since the September equinox it had emerged from the northern horizon, rising by lengthened spirals up to the 21st of December. At this period, the summer solstice of the northern regions, it had begun to descend; and to-morrow was to shed its last rays upon them. I communicated my fears and observations to Captain Nemo. “You are right, M. Aronnax,” said he; “if to-morrow I cannot take the altitude of the sun, I shall not be able to do it for six months. But precisely because chance has led me into these seas on the 21st of March, my bearings will be easy to take, if at twelve we can see the sun.” “Why, Captain?” “Because then the orb of day described such lengthened curves that it is difficult to measure exactly its height above the horizon, and grave errors may be made with instruments.” “What will you do then?” “I shall only use my chronometer,” replied Captain Nemo. “If to-morrow, the 21st of March, the disc of the sun, allowing for refraction, is exactly cut by the northern horizon, it will show that I am at the South Pole.” “Just so,” said I. “But this statement is not mathematically correct, because the equinox does not necessarily begin at noon.” “Very likely, sir; but the error will not be a hundred yards and we do not want more. Till to-morrow, then!” Captain Nemo returned on board. Conseil and I remained to survey the shore, observing and studying until five o’clock. Then I went to bed, not, however, without invoking, like the Indian, the favour of the radiant orb. The next day, the 21st of March, at five in the morning, I mounted the platform. I found Captain Nemo there. “The weather is lightening a little,” said he. “I have some hope. After breakfast we will go on shore and choose a post for observation.” That point settled, I sought Ned Land. I wanted to take him with me. But the obstinate Canadian refused, and I saw that his taciturnity and his bad humour grew day by day. After all, I was not sorry for his obstinacy under the circumstances. Indeed, there were too many seals on shore, and we ought not to lay such temptation in this unreflecting fisherman’s way. Breakfast over, we went on shore. The had gone some miles further up in the night. It was a whole league from the coast, above which reared a sharp peak about five hundred yards high. The boat took with me Captain Nemo, two men of the crew, and the instruments, which consisted of a chronometer, a telescope, and a barometer. While crossing, I saw numerous whales belonging to the three kinds peculiar to the southern seas; the whale, or the English “right whale,” which has no dorsal fin; the “humpback,” with reeved chest and large, whitish fins, which, in spite of its name, do not form wings; and the fin-back, of a yellowish brown, the liveliest of all the cetacea. This powerful creature is heard a long way off when he throws to a great height columns of air and vapour, which look like whirlwinds of smoke. These different mammals were disporting themselves in troops in the quiet waters; and I could see that this basin of the Antarctic Pole serves as a place of refuge to the cetacea too closely tracked by the hunters. I also noticed large medusæ floating between the reeds. Nautilus At nine we landed; the sky was brightening, the clouds were flying to the south, and the fog seemed to be leaving the cold surface of the waters. Captain Nemo went towards the peak, which he doubtless meant to be his observatory. It was a painful ascent over the sharp lava and the pumice-stones, in an atmosphere often impregnated with a sulphurous smell from the smoking cracks. For a man unaccustomed to walk on land, the Captain climbed the steep slopes with an agility I never saw equalled and which a hunter would have envied. We were two hours getting to the summit of this peak, which was half porphyry and half basalt. From thence we looked upon a vast sea which, towards the north, distinctly traced its boundary line upon the sky. At our feet lay fields of dazzling whiteness. Over our heads a pale azure, free from fog. To the north the disc of the sun seemed like a ball of fire, already horned by the cutting of the horizon. From the bosom of the water rose sheaves of liquid jets by hundreds. In the distance lay the like a cetacean asleep on the water. Behind us, to the south and east, an immense country and a chaotic heap of rocks and ice, the limits of which were not visible. On arriving at the summit Captain Nemo carefully took the mean height of the barometer, for he would have to consider that in taking his observations. At a quarter to twelve the sun, then seen only by refraction, looked like a golden disc shedding its last rays upon this deserted continent and seas which never man had yet ploughed. Captain Nemo, furnished with a lenticular glass which, by means of a mirror, corrected the refraction, watched the orb sinking below the horizon by degrees, following a lengthened diagonal. I held the chronometer. My heart beat fast. If the disappearance of the half-disc of the sun coincided with twelve o’clock on the chronometer, we were at the pole itself. Nautilus “Twelve!” I exclaimed. “The South Pole!” replied Captain Nemo, in a grave voice, handing me the glass, which showed the orb cut in exactly equal parts by the horizon. I looked at the last rays crowning the peak, and the shadows mounting by degrees up its slopes. At that moment Captain Nemo, resting with his hand on my shoulder, said: “I, Captain Nemo, on this 21st day of March, 1868, have reached the South Pole on the ninetieth degree; and I take possession of this part of the globe, equal to one-sixth of the known continents.” “In whose name, Captain?” “In my own, sir!” Saying which, Captain Nemo unfurled a black banner, bearing an “N” in gold quartered on its bunting. Then, turning towards the orb of day, whose last rays lapped the horizon of the sea, he exclaimed: “Adieu, sun! Disappear, thou radiant orb! rest beneath this open sea, and let a night of six months spread its shadows over my new domains!” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jules Verne (1994). Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022 https://www.gutenberg.org/files/164/164-h/164-h.htm This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at , located at . www.gutenberg.org https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html

THE SOUTH POLE

The Astronomy

THE PINE COCKCHAFER

THE CETONIÆ

THE CRICKET: THE BURROW; THE EGG

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

THE CICADA: THE LAYING AND THE HATCHING OF THE EGGS

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 CICADA: LEAVING THE BURROW CHAPTER II. THE CICADA: LEAVING THE BURROW To come back to the Cicada after Réaumur has told the insect’s story would be waste of time, save that the disciple enjoys an advantage unknown to the master. The great naturalist received the materials for his work from my part of the world; his subjects came by barge after being carefully preserved in spirits. I, on the other hand, live in the Cicada’s company. When July comes, he takes possession of the enclosure right up to the threshold of the house. The hermitage is our joint property. I remain master indoors; but out of doors he is the sovereign lord and an extremely noisy and abusive one. Our near neighbourhood and constant association have enabled me to enter into certain details of which Réaumur could not dream. The first Cicadæ appear at the time of the summer solstice. Along the much-trodden paths baked by the sun and hardened by the frequent passage of feet there open, level with the ground, round orifices about the size of a man’s thumb. These are the exit-holes of the Cicada-larvæ, who come up from the depths to undergo their transformation on the surface. They are more or less everywhere, except in soil turned over by the plough. Their usual position is in the driest spots, those most exposed to the sun, especially by the side of the roads. Equipped with powerful tools to pass, if necessary, through sandstone and dried clay, the larva, on leaving the earth, has a fancy for the hardest places. One of the garden-paths, converted into a little inferno by the glare from a wall facing south, abounds in such exit-holes. I proceed, in the last days of June, to examine these recently abandoned pits. The soil is so hard that I have to take my pickaxe to tackle it. The orifices are round and nearly an inch in diameter. There is absolutely no rubbish around them, no mound of earth thrown up [ ]outside. This is invariably the case: the Cicada’s hole is never surmounted with a mole-hill, as are the burrows of the Geotrupes, or Dorbeetles, those other sturdy excavators. The manner of working accounts for this difference. The Dung-beetle progresses from the outside inwards; he commences his digging at the mouth of the well, which allows him to ascend and heap up on the surface the material which he has extracted. The larva of the Cicada, on the other hand, goes from the inside outwards; the last thing that it does is to open the exit-door, which, remaining closed until the very end of the work, cannot be used for getting rid of the rubbish. The former goes in and makes a mound on the threshold of the home; the latter comes out and cannot heap up anything on a threshold that does not yet exist. 27 2 The Cicada’s tunnel runs to a depth of between fifteen and sixteen inches. It is cylindrical, winds slightly, according to the exigencies of the soil, and is always nearly perpendicular, for it is shorter to go that way. The passage is quite open throughout [ ]its length. It is useless to search for the rubbish which this excavation ought, one would think, to produce; we see none anywhere. The tunnel ends in a blind alley, in a rather wider chamber, with level walls and not the least vestige of communication with any gallery prolonging the well. 28 Reckoned by its length and its diameter, the excavation represents a volume of about twelve cubic inches. What has become of the earth removed? Sunk in very dry and very loose soil, the well and the chamber at the bottom ought to have crumbly walls, which would easily fall in, if nothing else had taken place but the work of boring. My surprise was great to find, on the contrary, coated surfaces, washed with a paste of clayey earth. They are not by a long way what one could call smooth, but at any rate their irregularities are covered with a layer of plaster; and their slippery materials, soaked with some agglutinant, are kept in position. The larva can move about and climb nearly up to the surface and down again to its refuge at the bottom without producing, with its clawed legs, landslips which would block the tube, making ascent difficult and [ ]retreat impossible. The miner shores up his galleries with pit-props and cross-beams; the builder of underground railways strengthens his tunnels with a casing of brickwork; the Cicada’s larva, which is quite as clever an engineer, cements its shaft so as to keep it open however long it may have to serve. 29 If I surprise the creature at the moment when it emerges from the soil to make for a neighbouring branch and there undergo its transformation, I see it at once beat a prudent retreat and, without the slightest difficulty, run down again to the bottom of its gallery, proving that, even when the dwelling is on the point of being abandoned for good, it does not become blocked with earth. The ascending-shaft is not a piece of work improvised in a hurry, in the insect’s impatience to reach the sunlight; it is a regular manor-house, an abode in which the grub is meant to make a long stay. So the plastered walls tell us. Any such precaution would be superfluous in the case of a mere exit abandoned as soon as bored. There is not a doubt but that we have here a sort of meteorological station in which observations are taken of the weather outside. Underground, fifteen inches down, or more, the [ ]larva ripe for its emergence is hardly able to judge whether the climatic conditions be favourable. Its subterranean weather is too gradual in its changes to be able to supply it with the precise indications necessary for the most important action of its life, its escape into the sunlight for the metamorphosis. 30 Patiently, for weeks, perhaps for months, it digs, clears and strengthens a perpendicular chimney, leaving at the surface, to keep it sequestered from the world without, a layer as thick as one’s finger. At the bottom it makes itself a recess more carefully built than the remainder. This is its refuge, its waiting-room, where it rests if its reconnoitring lead it to defer its emigration. At the least suspicion of fine weather, it scrambles up, tests the exterior through the thin layer of earth forming a lid and enquires into the temperature and the degree of humidity of the air. If things do not bode well, if a heavy shower threaten or a blustering storm—events of supreme importance when the delicate Cicada throws off her skin—the prudent insect slips back to the bottom of the tube and goes on waiting. If, on the other hand, the atmospheric conditions be favourable, [ ]then the ceiling is smashed with a few strokes of the claws and the larva emerges from the well. 31 Everything seems to confirm that the Cicada’s gallery is a waiting-room, a meteorological station where the larva stays for a long time, now hoisting itself near the surface to discover the state of the weather, now retreating to the depths for better shelter. This explains the convenience of a resting-place at the base and the need for a strong cement on walls which, without it, would certainly give way under continual comings and goings. What is not so easily explained is the complete disappearance of the rubbish corresponding with the space excavated. What has become of the twelve cubic inches of earth yielded by an average well? There is nothing outside to represent them, nor anything inside either. And then how, in a soil dry as cinders, is the plaster obtained with which the walls are glazed? Larvæ that gnaw into wood, such as those of the Capricorn and the Buprestes, [ ]for instance, ought to be able to answer the first question. They make their way inside a tree-trunk, boring galleries by eating the materials of the road which they open. Detached in tiny fragments by the mandibles, these materials are digested. They pass through the pioneer’s body from end to end, yielding up their meagre nutritive elements on the way, and accumulate behind, completely blocking the road which the grub will never take again. The work of excessive division and subdivision, done either by the mandibles or the stomach, causes the digested materials to take up less room than the untouched wood; and the result is a space in front of the gallery, a chamber in which the grub works, a chamber which is greatly restricted in length, giving the prisoner just enough room to move about. 3 32 Can it not be in a similar fashion that the Cicada-grub bores its tunnel? Certainly the waste material flung up as it digs its way does not pass through its body; even if the soil were of the softest and most yielding character, earth plays no part whatever in the larva’s food. But, after all, cannot the materials removed be simply shot back as the work proceeds? The Cicada remains [ ]four years in the ground. This long life is not, of course, spent at the bottom of the well which we have described: this is just a place where the larva prepares for its emergence. It comes from elsewhere, doubtless from some distance. It is a vagabond, going from one root to another and driving its sucker into each. When it moves, either to escape from the upper layers, which are too cold in winter, or to settle down at a better drinking-bar, it clears a road by flinging behind it the materials broken up by its pickaxes. This is undoubtedly the method. 33 As with the larvæ of the Capricorn and the Buprestes, the traveller needs around him only the small amount of free room which his movements require. Damp, soft, easily compressed earth is to this larva what the digested pap is to the others. Such earth is heaped up without difficulty; it condenses and leaves a vacant space. The difficulty is one of a different kind with the exit-well bored in a very dry soil, which offers a marked resistance to compression so long as it retains its aridity. That the larva, when beginning to dig its passage, flung back part of the excavated materials into an earlier gallery which has now disappeared [ ]is fairly probable, though there is nothing in the condition of things to tell us so; but, if we consider the capacity of the well and the extreme difficulty of finding room for so great a volume of rubbish, our doubts return and we say to ourselves: 34 “This rubbish demanded a large empty space, which itself was obtained by shifting other refuse no less difficult to house. The room required presupposes the existence of another space into which the earth extracted was shot.” And so we find ourselves in a vicious circle, for the mere subsidence of materials flung behind would not be enough to explain so great a void. The Cicada must have a special method of disposing of the superfluous earth. Let us try and surprise his secret. Examine a larva at the moment when it emerges from the ground. It is nearly always more or less soiled with mud, sometimes wet, sometimes dry. The digging-implements, the fore-feet, have the points of their pickaxes stuck in a globule of slime; its other legs are cased in mud; its back is spotted with clay. We are reminded of a scavenger who has been stirring up sewage. [ ]These stains are the more striking inasmuch as the creature comes out of exceedingly dry ground. We expected to see it covered with dust and we find it covered with mud. 35 One more step in this direction and the problem of the well is solved. I exhume a larva which happens to be working at its exit-gallery. Very occasionally, I get a piece of luck like this, in the course of my digging; it would be useless for me to try for it, as there is nothing outside to guide my search. My welcome prize is just beginning its excavations. An inch of tunnel, free from any rubbish, and the waiting-room at the bottom represent all the work for the moment. In what condition is the worker? We shall see. The grub is much paler in colour than those which I catch as they emerge. Its big eyes in particular are whitish, cloudy, squinting and apparently of little use for seeing. What good is sight underground? The eyes of the larvæ issuing from the earth are, on the contrary, black and shining and indicate ability to see. When it makes its appearance in the sunshine, the future Cicada has to seek, occasionally at some distance from the exit-hole, the hanging [ ]branch on which the metamorphosis will be performed; and here sight will manifestly be useful. This maturity of vision attained during the preparation for the release is enough to show us that the larva, far from hastily improvising its ascending-shaft, works at it for a long time. 36 Moreover, the pale and blind larva is bulkier than it is in the state of maturity. It is swollen with liquid and looks dropsical. If you take it in your fingers, a limpid humour oozes from the hinder part and moistens the whole body. Is this fluid, expelled from the intestines, a urinary product? Is it just the residue of a stomach fed solely on sap? I will not decide the question and will content myself with calling it urine, merely for convenience. Well, this fountain of urine is the key to the mystery. The larva, as it goes on and digs, sprinkles the dusty materials and makes them into paste, which is forthwith applied to the walls by abdominal pressure. The original dryness is succeeded by plasticity. The mud obtained penetrates the interstices of a rough soil; the more liquid part of it trickles in front; the remainder is compressed and packed and occupies the empty [ ]spaces in between. Thus is an unblocked tunnel obtained, without any refuse, because the dust and rubbish are used on the spot in the form of a mortar which is more compact and more homogeneous than the soil traversed. 37 The larva therefore works in the midst of clayey mire; and this is the cause of the stains that astonish us so much when we see it issuing from excessively dry soil. The perfect insect, though relieved henceforth from all mining labour, does not utterly abandon the use of its bladder; a few drains of urine are preserved as a weapon of defence. When too closely observed, it discharges a spray at the intruder and quickly flies away. In either form, the Cicada, his dry constitution notwithstanding, proves himself a skilled irrigator. Dropsical though it be, the larva cannot carry sufficient liquid to moisten and turn into compressible mud the long column of earth which has to be tunnelled. The reservoir becomes exhausted and the supply has to be renewed. How is this done and when? I think I see. The few wells which I have laid bare throughout their length, with the painstaking [ ]care which this sort of digging demands, show me at the bottom, encrusted in the wall of the terminal chamber, a live root, sometimes as big as a lead-pencil, sometimes no thicker than a straw. The visible part of this root is quite small, barely a fraction of an inch. The rest is contained in the surrounding earth. Is the discovery of this sort of sap fortuitous? Or is it the result of a special search on the larva’s part? The presence of a rootlet is so frequent, at least when my digging is skilfully conducted, that I rather favour the latter alternative. 38 Yes, the Cicada-grub, when hollowing out its cell, the starting-point of the future chimney, seeks the immediate neighbourhood of a small live root; it lays bare a certain portion, which continues the side wall without projecting. This live spot in the wall is, I think, the fount from which the contents of the urinary bladder are renewed as the need arises. When its reserves are exhausted by the conversion of dry dust into mud, the miner goes down to his chamber, drives in his sucker and takes a deep draught from the cask built into the wall. With his jug well filled, he goes up again. He resumes his work, wetting the hard earth the [ ]better to flatten it with his claws and reducing the dusty rubbish to mud which can be heaped up around him and leave a clear thoroughfare. That is how things must happen. So logic and the circumstances of the case tell us, in the absence of direct observation, which is not feasible here. 39 If this root-cask fail, if moreover the reservoir of the intestine be exhausted, what will happen then? We shall learn from the following experiment. I catch a grub as it is leaving the ground. I put it at the bottom of a test-tube and cover it with a column of dry earth, not too closely packed. The column is nearly six inches high. The larva has just quitted an excavation thrice as deep, in soil of the same nature, but offering a much greater resistance. Now that it is buried under my short, sandy column, will it be capable of climbing to the surface? If it were a mere matter of strength, the issue would be certain. What can an obstacle without cohesion be to one that has just bored a hole through the hard ground? And yet I am assailed by doubts. To break down the screen that still separated it from the outer air, the larva has expended its last reserves of fluid. The flask is dry; [ ]and there is no way of replenishing it in the absence of a live root. My suspicion of failure is well-founded. For three days I see the entombed one wasting itself in efforts without succeeding in rising an inch higher. The materials removed refuse to stay in position for lack of anything to bind them; they are no sooner pushed aside than they slip down again under the insect’s legs. The labour has no perceptible result and has always to be done all over again. On the fourth day, the creature dies. 40 With the water-can full, the result is quite different. I subject to the same experiment an insect whose work of self-deliverance is just beginning. It is all swollen with urinary humours which ooze out and moisten its whole body. This one’s task is easy. The materials offer hardly any resistance. A little moisture, supplied by the miner’s flask, converts them into mud, sticks them together and keeps them out of the way. The passage is opened, very irregular in shape, it is true, and almost filled up at the back as the ascent proceeds. It is as though the larva, recognizing the impossibility of renewing its store of fluid, were saving up the little which it possesses and spending no [ ]more than is strictly necessary to enable it to escape as quickly as possible from its unfamiliar surroundings. This economy is so well arranged that the insect reaches the surface at the end of ten days. 41 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 CICADA: LEAVING THE BURROW

THE CETONIA-LARVA

Social Life in the Insect World by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here .  THE PINE-CHAFER CHAPTER XXI. THE PINE-CHAFER The orthodox denomination of this insect is Melolontha fullo, Lin. It does not answer, I am very well aware, to be difficult in matters of nomenclature; make a noise of some sort, affix a Latin termination, and you will have, as far as euphony goes, the equivalent of many of the tickets pasted in the entomologist's specimen boxes. The cacophony would be excusable if the barbarous term signified nothing but the creature signified; but as a rule this name possesses, hidden in its Greek or other roots, a certain meaning in which the novice hopes to find instruction. The hope is a delusion. The learned term refers to subtleties difficult to comprehend, and of very indifferent importance. Too often it leads the student astray, giving him glimpses that have nothing whatever in common with the truth as we know it from observation. Very often the errors implied by such names are flagrant; sometimes the allusions are ridiculous, grotesque, or merely imbecile. So long as they have a decent sound, how infinitely preferable are locutions in which etymology finds nothing to dissect! Of such would be the word fullo, were it not that it already has a meaning which immediately occurs to the mind. This Latin expression means a fuller; a person who kneads and presses cloth under a stream of water, making it flexible and ridding it of the asperities of weaving. What connection has the subject of this chapter with the fuller of cloth? I may puzzle my head in vain: no acceptable reply will occur to me. The term fullo as applied to an insect is found in Pliny. In one chapter the great naturalist treats of remedies against jaundice, fevers, and dropsy. A little of everything enters into this antique pharmacy: the longest tooth of a black dog; the nose of a mouse wrapped in a pink cloth; the right eye of a green lizard torn from the living animal and placed in a bag of kid-skin; the heart of a serpent, cut out with the left hand; the four articulations of the tail of a scorpion, including the dart, wrapped tightly in a black cloth, so that for three days the sick man can see neither the remedy nor him that applies it; and a number of other extravagances. We may well close the book, alarmed at the slough of the imbecility whence the art of healing has come down to us. In the midst of these imbecilities, the preludes of medicine, we find a mention of the "fuller." Tertium qui vocatur fullo, albis guttis, dissectum utrique lacerto adalligant, says the text. To treat fevers divide the fuller beetle in two parts and apply half under the right arm and half under the left. THE PINE-CHAFER. (Melolontha fullo.) Now what did the ancient naturalist mean by the term "fuller beetle"? We do not precisely know. The qualification albis guttis, white spots, would fit the Pine-chafer well enough, but it is not sufficient to make us certain. Pliny himself does not seem to have been very certain of the identity of the remedy. In his time men's eyes had not yet learne d to see the insect world. Insects were too small; they were well enough for amusing children, who would tie them to the end of a long thread and make them walk in circles, but they were not worthy of occupying the attention of a self-respecting man. Pliny apparently derived the word from the country-folk, always poor observers and inclined to extravagant denominations. The scholar accepted the rural locution, the work perhaps of the imagination of childhood, and applied it at hazard without informing himself more particularly. The word came down to us embalmed with age; our modern naturalists have accepted it, and thus one of our handsomest insects has become the "fuller." The majesty of antiquity has consecrated the strange appellation. In spite of all my respect for the antique, I cannot myself accept the term "fuller," because under the circumstances it is absurd. Common sense should be considered before the aberrations of nomenclature. Why not call our subject the Pine-chafer, in reference to the beloved tree, the paradise of the insect during the two or three weeks of its aerial life? Nothing could be simpler, or more appropriate, to give the better reason last. We have to wander for ages in the night of absurdity before we reach the radiant light of the truth. All our sciences witness to this fact; even the science of numbers. Try to add a column of Roman figures; you will abandon the task, stupefied by the confusion of symbols; and will recognise what a revolution was made in arithmetic by the discovery of the zero. Like the egg of Columbus, it was a very little thing, but it had to be thought of. While hoping that the future will sink the unfortunate "fuller" in oblivion, we will use the term "pine chafer" between ourselves. Under that name no one can possibly mistake the insect in question, which frequents the pine-tree only. It has a handsome and dignified appearance, rivalling that of Oryctes nasicornis. Its costume, if it has not the metallic splendour dear to the Scarabæi, the Buprestes and the rose-beetles, is at least unusually elegant. A black or chestnut background is thickly sown with capriciously shaped spots of white velvet; a fashion both modest and handsome. The male bears at the end of his short antennæ a kind of plume consisting of seven large superimposed plates or leaves, which, opening and closing like the sticks of a fan, betray the emotions that possess him. At first sight it seems that this magnificent foliage must form a sense-organ of great perfection, capable of perceiving subtle odours, or almost inaudible vibrations of the air, or other phenomena to which our senses fail to respond; but the female warns us that we must not place too much reliance on such ideas; for although her maternal duties demand a degree of impressionability at least as great as that of the male, yet the plumes of her antennæ are extremely meagre, containing only six narrow leaves. What then is the use of the enormous fan-like structure of the male antennæ? The seven-leaved apparatus is for the Pine-chafer what his long vibrating horns are to the Cerambyx and the panoply of the head to the Onthophagus and the forked antlers of the mandibles to the Stag-beetle. Each decks himself after his manner in these nuptial extravagances. This handsome chafer appears towards the summer solstice, almost simultaneously with the first Cigales. The punctuality of its appearance gives it a place in the entomological calendar, which is no less punctual than that of the seasons. When the longest days come, those days which seem endless and gild the harvests, it never fails to ha sten to its tree. The fires of St. John, reminiscences of the festivals of the Sun, which the children light in the village streets, are not more punctual in their date. At this season, in the hours of twilight, the Pine-chafer comes every evening if the weather is fine, to visit the pine-trees in the garden. I follow its evolutions with my eyes. With a silent flight, not without spirit, the males especially wheel and wheel about, extending their great antennary plumes; they go to and fro, to and fro, a procession of flying shadows upon the pale blue of the sky in which the last light of day is dying. They settle, take flight again, and once more resume their busy rounds. What are they doing up there during the fortnight of their festival? The answer is evident: they are courting their mates, and they continue to render their homage until the fall of night. In the morning both males and females commonly occupy the lower branches. They lie there isolated, motionless, indifferent to passing events. They do not avoid the hand about to seize them. Most of them are hanging by their hind legs and nibbling the pine-needles; they seem to be gently drowsing with the needles at their mouths. When twilight returns they resume their frolics. To watch these frolics in the tops of the trees is hardly possible; let us try to observe them in captivity. Four pairs are collected in the morning and placed, with some twigs off the pine-tree, in a spacious; cage. The sight is hardly worth my attention; deprived of the possibility of flight, the insects cannot behave as in the open. At most I see a male from time to time approaching his beloved; he spreads out the leaves of his antennæ, and agitates them so that they shiver slightly; he is perhaps informing himself if he is welcome. Thereupon he puts on his finest airs and exhibits his attainments. It is a useless display; t he female is motionless, as though insensible to these demonstrations. Captivity has sorrows that are hard to overcome. This was all that I was able to see. Mating, it appears, must take place during the later hours of the night, so that I missed the propitious moment. One detail in particular interested me. The Pine-chafer emits a musical note. The female is as gifted as the male. Does the lover make use of his faculty as a means of seduction and appeal? Does the female answer the chirp of her innamorata by a similar chirp? That this may be so under normal conditions, amidst the foliage of the pines, is extremely probable; but I can make no assertion, as I have never heard anything of the kind either among the pines or in my laboratory. The sound is produced by the extremity of the abdomen, which gently rises and falls, rubbing, as it does so, with its last few segments, the hinder edge of the wing-covers, which are held firm and motionless. There is no special equipment on the rubbing surface nor on the surface rubbed. The magnifying-glass looks in vain for the fine striations usually found in the musical instruments of the insect world. All is smooth on either hand. How then is the sound engendered? Rub the end of the moistened finger on a strip of glass, or a window-pane, and you will obtain a very audible sound, somewhat analogous to that emitted by the chafer. Better still, use a scrap of indiarubber to rub the glass with, and you will reproduce with some fidelity the sound in question. If the proper rhythm is observed the imitation is so successful that one might well be deceived by it. In the musical apparatus of the Pine-chafer the pad of the finger-tip and the scrap of indiarubber are represented by the soft abdomen of the insect, and the glass is represented by the blade of the wing-cover, which forms a thin, rigid plate, easily set in vibration. The sound-mechanism of the Pine-chafer is thus of the very simplest description. 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 (2006). Social Life in the Insect World. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18350/pg18350-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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