THE GREAT CERCERIS

The Hunting Wasps by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. THE GREAT CERCERIS

Chapter II. THE GREAT CERCERIS

With my memory full of the prowess of the Buprestis-huntress, I watched for an opportunity to observe in my turn the labours of the Cerceres; and I watched to such good purpose that I ended by being successful. True, the Wasp was not the one celebrated by Léon Dufour, with her sumptuous victuals whose remains, when unearthed, suggest the dust of some nugget broken by the gold-miner’s pick: it was a kindred species, a gigantic brigand who contents herself with humbler prey; in short, it was Cerceris tuberculata or C. major, the largest and most powerful of the genus.

The last fortnight in September is the time when our Burrowing Wasp digs her lairs and buries in their depths the victim destined for her grubs. The site of the home, always selected with discrimination, is subject to those mysterious laws which differ in different species but are invariable throughout any one species. Léon Dufour’s Cerceris requires a level, well-trodden, compact soil, such as that of a path, to prevent the possibility of landslips and other damage which would ruin her gallery at the first shower of rain. Ours, on the contrary, is not very particular about the nature of her soil, but must have that soil vertical. With this slight architectural modification, she avoids most of the dangers that might threaten her gallery; and consequently she digs her burrows indifferently in a loose and slightly clayey soil and in the soft sand of the Molasse formation, which makes the work of excavation much easier. The only indispensable condition appears to be that the earth should be dry and exposed to the sun’s rays for the best part of the day. It is therefore in the steep roadside banks, in the sides of the ravines hollowed by the rains in the sandstone, that our Wasp elects to establish her home. These conditions are common in the neighbourhood of Carpentras, in the part known as the Hollow Road; and it is here that I have observed Cerceris tuberculata in her largest numbers and that I gathered most of my facts relating to her history.

The choice of this vertical site is not enough for her: other precautions are taken to guard against the inevitable rains of the season, which is already far advanced. If there be some bit of hard sandstone projecting like a ledge, if there be naturally hollowed in the ground some hole large enough to put one’s fist in, it will be under that shelter or in this cavity that she contrives her gallery, thus adding a natural vestibule to the edifice of her own construction. Though no sort of communism exists among them, these insects nevertheless like to associate in small numbers; and I have always observed their nests in groups of about ten at least, with the orifices, which are usually pretty far apart, sometimes close enough to touch one another.

On a bright, sunny day it is wonderful to watch the different operations of these industrious miners. Some patiently remove with their mandibles a few bits of gravel from the bottom of the pit and push the heavy mass outside; others, scraping the walls of the corridor with the sharp rakes of their tarsi, collect a heap of rubbish which they sweep out backwards and send streaming down the sides of the slopes in a long thread of dust. It was these periodical billows of sand discharged from the galleries in process of building that betrayed the presence of my first Cerceres to me and enabled me to discover their nests. Others, either because they are tired or because they have finished their hard task, seem to rest and polish their antennæ and wings under the natural eaves that most frequently protect their dwelling; or else they remain motionless at the mouth of the hole, merely showing their wide, square faces, striped black and yellow. Others, lastly, flit gravely humming on the neighbouring kermes-oak-bushes, where the males, always on the watch near the burrows in course of construction, are not slow to join them. Couples form, often disturbed by the arrival of a second male, who strives to supplant the happy possessor. The humming becomes threatening, brawls take place and often the two males roll in the dust until one of them acknowledges the superiority of his rival. Near by, the female awaits the outcome of the struggle with indifference; she finally accepts the male whom the chances of the contest bestow upon her; and the couple fly out of sight in search of peace and quiet on some distant brushwood. Here the part played by the males ends. Only half the size of the females and nearly as numerous, they prowl all around the burrows, but never enter and never take part in the laborious mining operations nor in the perhaps even more difficult hunting expeditions by means of which the cells are to be stocked.

The galleries are ready in a few days, especially as those of the previous year are employed with the aid of a few repairs. The other Cerceres, so far as I know, have no fixed home, no family inheritance handed down from generation to generation. A regular gipsy tribe, they settle singly wherever the chances of their vagrant life may lead them, provided that the soil suits them. But the Great Cerceris is faithful to her household gods. The overhanging blade of sandstone that sheltered her predecessors is adopted by her in her turn; she digs in the same layer of sand wherein her forbears dug; and, adding her own labours to those which went before, she obtains deep retreats that are not always easy of inspection. The diameter of the galleries is wide enough to admit a man’s thumb; and the insect moves about in them readily, even when laden with the prey which we shall see it capture. Their direction, at first horizontal to a depth of four to eight inches, describes a sudden bend and dips more or less obliquely now to this side, now to that. With the exception of the horizontal part and the bend, the direction of the rest of the tube seems to be regulated by the difficulties presented by the ground, as is proved by the twists and turns observed in the more distant portion. The total length of the shaft attains as much as eighteen inches. At the far end of the tube are the cells, few in number and each provisioned with five or six corpses of the Beetle order. But let us leave these building details and come to facts more capable of exciting our admiration.

The victim which the Cerceris chooses whereon to feed her grubs is a large-sized Weevil, Cleonus ophthalmicus. We see the kidnapper arrive heavily laden, carrying her victim between her legs, body to body, head to head, and plump down at some distance from her hole, to complete the rest of the journey without the aid of her wings. The Wasp is now dragging her prey in her mandibles up a vertical, or at least a very steep surface, productive of frequent tumbles which send kidnapper and kidnapped rolling helter-skelter to the bottom, but incapable of discouraging the indefatigable mother, who, covered with dirt and dust, ends by diving into the burrow with her booty, which she has not let go for a single moment. Whereas the Cerceris finds it far from easy to walk with such a burden, especially on ground of this character, it is a different matter when she is flying, which she does with a vigour that astonishes us when we consider that the sturdy little creature is carrying a prize almost as large as herself and heavier. I had the curiosity to compare the weight of the Cerceris and her victim: the first turned the scale at 150 milligrammes;1 the second averaged 250 milligrammes,2 or nearly double.

These figures are eloquent of the powers of the huntress, nor did I ever weary of admiring the nimbleness and ease with which she resumed her flight, with the game between her legs, and rose to a height at which I lost sight of her whenever, tracked too close by my indiscretion, she resolved to flee in order to save her precious booty. But she did not always fly away; and I would then succeed, not without difficulty, lest I should hurt her, in making her drop her prey by worrying her and rolling her over. I would then seize the Weevil; and the Cerceris, thus despoiled, would hunt about here and there, enter her lair for a moment and soon come out again to fly off on a fresh chase. In less than ten minutes the skilled huntress had found a new victim, performed the murder and accomplished the rape, which I often allowed myself to turn to my own profit. Eight times in succession I have committed the same robbery at the expense of the same Wasp; eight times, with unshaken consistency, she has recommenced her fruitless expedition. Her patience outwore mine; and I left her in undisturbed possession of her ninth capture.

By this means, or by violating cells already provisioned, I procured close upon a hundred Weevils; and, notwithstanding what I was entitled to expect from what Léon Dufour has told us of the habits of the Buprestis-hunting Cerceris, I could not repress my surprise at the sight of the singular collection which I had made. Whereas the Buprestis-slayer, while confining herself to one genus, passes indiscriminately from one species to another, the more exclusive Great Cerceris preys invariably on the same species, Cleonus ophthalmicus. When going through my bag I came upon but one exception, and even that belonged to a kindred species, Cleonus alternans, a species which I never saw again in my frequent visits to the Cerceris. Later researches supplied me with a second exception, in the shape of Bothynoderus albidus; and that is all. Is this predilection for a single species adequately explained by the greater flavour and succulence of the prey? Do the grubs find in this monotonous diet juices which suit them and which they would not find elsewhere? I do not think so; and, if Léon Dufour’s Cerceris hunts every sort of Buprestis without distinction, this is doubtless because all the Buprestes possess the same nutritive properties. But this must be generally the case with the Weevils also: their nourishing qualities must be identical; and then this surprising choice becomes only a question of size and consequently of economy of labour and time. Our Cerceris, the mammoth of her race, tackles the Ophthalmic Cleonus by preference because this Weevil is the largest in our district and perhaps also the commonest. But, if her favourite prey should fail, she must fall back upon other species, even though they be smaller, as is proved by the two exceptions stated.

Besides, she is far from being the only one to go hunting at the expense of the snouted clan, the Weevils. Many other Cerceres, according to their size, their strength and the accidents of the chase, capture Weevils varying infinitely in genus, species, shape, and dimensions. It has long been known that Cerceris arenaria feeds her grubs on similar provisions. I myself have encountered in her lairs Sitona lineata, S. tibialis, Cneorinus hispidus, Brachyderes gracilis, Geonemus flabellipes and Otiorhynchus maleficus. Cerceris aurita is known to make her booty of Otiorhynchus raucus and Phynotomus punctatus. The larder of Cerceris Ferreri has shown me the following: Phynotomus murinus, P. punctatus, Sitona lineata, Cneorinus hispidus, Rhynchites betuleti. The last, who rolls vine-leaves in the shape of cigars, is sometimes a superb steel-blue and more ordinarily shines with a splendid golden copper. I have found as many as seven of these brilliant insects victualling a single cell; and the gaudiness of the little subterranean heap might almost stand comparison with the jewels buried by the Buprestis-huntress. Other species, notably the weaker, go in for lesser game, whose small size is atoned for by larger numbers. Thus Cerceris quadricincta stacks quite thirty specimens of Apion gravidum in each of her cells, without disdaining on occasion such larger Weevils as Sitona lineata and Phynotomus murinus. A similar provision of small species falls to the share of Cerceris labiata. Lastly, the smallest Cerceris in my district, Cerceris Julii,3 chases the tiniest Weevils, Apion gravidum and Bruchus granarius, victims proportioned to the diminutive huntress. To finish with this list of game, let us add that a few Cerceres observe other gastronomic laws and raise their families on Hymenoptera. One of these is Cerceris ornata. We will dismiss these tastes as foreign to the subject in hand.

Of the eight species then of Cerceres whose provisions consist of Beetles, seven adopt a diet of Weevils and one a diet of Buprestes. For what singular reasons are the depredations of these Wasps confined to such narrow limits? What are the motives for this exclusive choice? What inward likeness can there be between the Buprestes and the Weevils, outwardly so entirely dissimilar, that they should both become the food of kindred carnivorous grubs? Beyond a doubt, there are differences of flavour between this victim and that, nutritive differences which the larvæ are well able to appreciate; but some graver reason must overrule all such gastronomic considerations and cause these curious predilections.

After all the admirable things that have been said by Léon Dufour upon the long and wonderful preservation of the insects destined for the flesh-eating larvæ, it is almost needless to add that the Weevils, both those whom I dug up and those whom I took from between the legs of their kidnappers, were always in a perfect state of preservation, though deprived for ever of the power of motion. Freshness of colour, flexibility of the membranes and the lesser joints, normal condition of the viscera: all these combine to make you doubt that the lifeless body before your eyes is really a corpse, all the more as even with the magnifying-glass it is impossible to perceive the smallest wound; and, in spite of yourself, you are every moment expecting to see the insect move and walk. Nay more: in a heat which, in a few hours, would have dried and pulverized insects that had died an ordinary death, or in damp weather, which would just as quickly have made them decay and go mouldy, I have kept the same specimens, both in glass tubes and paper bags, for more than a month, without precautions of any kind; and, incredible though it may sound, after this enormous lapse of time the viscera had lost none of their freshness and dissection was as easily performed as though I were operating on a live insect. No, in the presence of such facts, we cannot speak of the action of an antiseptic and believe in a real death: life is still there, latent, passive life, the life of a vegetable. It alone, resisting yet a little while longer the all-conquering chemical forces, can thus preserve the structure from decomposition. Life is still there, except for movement; and we have before our eyes a marvel such as chloroform or ether might produce, a marvel which owes its origin to the mysterious laws of the nervous system.

The functions of this vegetative life are no doubt enfeebled and disturbed; but at any rate they are exercised in a lethargic fashion. I have as a proof the evacuation performed by the Weevils normally and at intervals during the first week of this deep slumber, which will be followed by no awakening and which nevertheless is not yet death. It does not cease until the intestines are emptied of their contents, as shown by autopsy. Nor do the faint glimmers of life which the insect still manifests stop at that; and, though irritability of the organs seems annihilated for good, I have nevertheless succeeded in arousing slight signs of it. Having placed some recently exhumed and absolutely motionless Weevils in a bottle containing sawdust moistened with a few drops of benzine, I was not a little astonished to see their legs and antennæ moving a quarter of an hour later. For a moment I thought that I could recall them to life. Vain hope! Those movements, the last traces of a susceptibility about to be extinguished, soon cease and cannot be excited a second time. I have tried this experiment in some cases a few hours after the murderous blow, in others as late as three or four days after, and always with the same success. Still, the movement is feeble in proportion to the time that has elapsed since the fatal stroke. It always spreads from front to back: the antennæ first wave slowly to and fro; then the front tarsi tremble and take part in the oscillation; next the tarsi of the second pair of legs and lastly those of the third pair hasten to do likewise. Once movement sets in, these different appendages execute their vibrations without any order, until the whole relapses into immobility, which happens more or less quickly. Unless the blow has been dealt quite recently, the motion of the tarsi extends no farther and the legs remain still.

Ten days after an attack I was unable to obtain the least vestige of susceptibility by the above process; and I then had recourse to the Voltaic battery. This method is more powerful and provokes muscular contractions and movements where the benzine-vapour fails. We have only therefore to apply the current of one or two Bunsen cells through the conductors of some slender needles. Thrusting the point of one under the farthest ring of the abdomen and the point of the other under the neck, we obtain, each time the current is established, not only a quivering of the tarsi, but a strong reflexion of the legs, which draw up under the abdomen and then straighten out when the current is turned off. These flutterings, which are very energetic during the first few days, gradually diminish in intensity and appear no more after a certain time. On the tenth day I have still obtained perceptible movements; on the fifteenth day the battery was powerless to provoke them, despite the suppleness of the limbs and the freshness of the viscera. To effect a comparison, I subjected to the action of the Voltaic pile Beetles really dead, Cellar-beetles, Saperdæ and Lamiæ, asphyxiated with benzine or sulphuric acid gas. Two hours at most after the asphyxiation, it was impossible for me to provoke the movements so easily obtained in Weevils who have already for several days been in that curious intermediate state between life and death into which their formidable enemy plunges them.

All these facts are opposed to the idea of something completely dead, to the theory that we have here a veritable corpse which has become incorruptible by the action of a preservative fluid. They can be explained only by admitting that the insect is smitten in the very origin and mainspring of its movements; that its susceptibility, suddenly benumbed, dies out slowly, while the more tenacious vegetative functions die still more slowly and keep the intestines in a state of preservation for the space of time required by the larvæ.

The particular thing which it was most important to ascertain was the manner in which the murder is committed. It is quite evident that the chief part in this must be played by the Cerceris’ venom-laden sting. But where and how does it enter the Weevil’s body, which is covered with a hard and well-riveted cuirass? In the various insects pierced by the assassin’s dart, nothing, even under the magnifying-glass, betrayed her method. It became a matter, therefore, of discovering the murderous manœuvres of the Wasp by direct observation, a problem whose difficulties had made Léon Dufour recoil and whose solution seemed to me for a time undiscoverable. I tried, however, and had the satisfaction of succeeding, though not without some preliminary groping.

When flying from their caverns, intent upon the chase, the Cerceres would take any direction indifferently, turning now this way, now that; and they would come back, laden with their prey, from all quarters. Every part of the neighbourhood must therefore have been explored without distinction; but, as the huntresses were hardly more than ten minutes in coming and going, the radius worked could not be one of great extent, especially when we allow for the time necessary for the insect to discover its prey, to attack it and to reduce it to an inert mass. I therefore set myself to inspect the adjacent ground with every possible attention, in the hope of finding a few Cerceres engaged in hunting. An afternoon devoted to this thankless task ended by persuading me of the futility of my quest and of the small chance which I had of catching in the act a few scarce huntresses, scattered here and there and soon lost to view through the swiftness of their flight, especially on difficult ground, thickly planted with vines and olive-trees. I abandoned the attempt.

By myself bringing live Weevils into the vicinity of the nests, might I not tempt the Cerceres with a victim all ready to hand and thus witness the desired tragedy? The idea seemed a good one; and the very next morning I went off in search of live specimens of Cleonus ophthalmicus. Vineyards, cornfields, lucerne-crops, hedges, stone-heaps, roadsides: I visited and inspected one and all; and, after two mortal days of minute investigation, I was the possessor—dare I say it?—I was the possessor of three Weevils, flayed, covered with dust, minus antennæ or tarsi, maimed veterans whom the Cerceres would perhaps refuse to look at! Many years have passed since the days of that fevered quest when, bathed in sweat, I made those wild expeditions, all for a Weevil; and, despite my almost daily entomological explorations, I am still ignorant how and where the celebrated Cleonus lives, though I meet him occasionally, roaming on the edge of the paths. O wonderful power of instinct! In the selfsame places and in a mere fraction of time, our Wasps would have found by the hundred these insects undiscoverable by man; and they would have found them fresh and glossy, doubtless just issued from their nymphal cocoons!

No matter, let us see what we can do with my pitiful bag. A Cerceris has just entered her gallery with her usual prey; before she comes out again for a new expedition, I place a Weevil a few inches from the hole. The insect moves about; when it strays too far, I restore it to its position. At last the Cerceris shows her wide face and emerges from the hole; my heart beats with excitement. The Wasp stalks about the approaches to her home for a few moments, sees the Weevil, brushes against him, turns round, passes several times over his back and flies away without honouring my capture with a touch of her mandibles: the capture which I was at such pains to acquire. I am confounded, I am floored. Fresh attempts at other holes lead to fresh disappointments. Clearly these dainty sports-women will have none of the game which I offer them. Perhaps they find it uninteresting, not fresh enough. Perhaps, by taking it in my fingers, I have given it some odour which they dislike. With these epicures a mere alien touch is enough to produce disgust.

Should I be more fortunate if I obliged the Cerceris to use her sting in self-defence? I enclosed a Cerceris and a Cleonus in the same bottle and stirred them up by shaking it. The Wasp, with her sensitive nature, was more impressed than the other prisoner, with his dull and clumsy organization; she thought of flight, not of attack. The very parts were interchanged: the Weevil, becoming the aggressor, at times seized with his snout a leg of his mortal enemy, who was so greatly overcome with fear that she did not even seek to defend herself. I was at the end of my resources; yet my wish to behold the catastrophe was but increased by the difficulties already experienced. Well, I would try again.

A bright idea flashed across my mind, entering so naturally into the very heart of the question that it brought hope in its train. Yes, that must be it; the thing was bound to succeed. I must offer my scorned game to the Cerceris in the heat of the chase. Then, carried away by her absorbing preoccupation, she would not perceive its imperfections.

I have already said that, on her return from hunting, the Cerceris alights at the foot of the slope, at some distance from the hole, whither she laboriously drags her prey. It became a matter, therefore, of robbing her of her victim by drawing it away by one foot with my forceps and at once throwing her the live Weevil in exchange. The trick succeeded to perfection. As soon as the Cerceris felt her prey slip from under her belly and escape her, she tapped the ground impatiently with her feet, turned round and, perceiving the Weevil that had taken the place of her own, flung herself upon him and clasped him in her legs to carry him away. But she soon became aware that her prey was alive; and now the tragedy began, only to end with inconceivable rapidity. The Wasp faced her victim and, gripping its snout with her powerful mandibles, soon had it at her mercy. Then, while the Weevil reared on his six legs, the other pressed her forefeet violently on his back, as if to force open some ventral joint. I next saw the assassin’s abdomen slip under the Cleonus’ belly, bend into a curve, and dart its poisoned lancet briskly, two or three times, into the joint of the prothorax, between the first and second pair of legs. All was over in a moment. Without the least convulsive movement, without any of that stretching of the limbs which accompanies an animal’s death, the victim fell motionless for all time, as though struck by lightning. It was terribly and at the same time wonderfully quick. The murderess next turned the body on its back, placed herself belly to belly with it, with her legs on either side, clasped it and flew away. Thrice over I renewed the experiment, with my three Weevils; and the process never varied.

Of course I gave the Cerceris back her first prey each time and withdrew my own Cleonus to examine him at my leisure. The inspection but confirmed my high opinion of the assassin’s formidable skill. It was impossible to perceive the least sign of a wound, the slightest flow of vital fluid at the point attacked. But what was most striking—and justly so—was the prompt and complete annihilation of all movement. Immediately after the murder I sought in vain for traces of irritability of the organs in the three Weevils dispatched before my eyes: those traces were never revealed, whether I pinched or pricked the insect; and it required the artificial means described above to provoke them. Thus these powerful Cleoni, which, if pierced alive with a pin and fixed on the insect-collector’s fatal sheet of cork, would have kicked and struggled for days and weeks, nay, for whole months on end, instantly lose all power of movement from the effect of a tiny prick which inoculates them with an invisible drop of venom. But chemistry has no poison so potent in so minute a dose; prussic acid would hardly produce those effects, if indeed it can produce them at all. It is not to toxology then, surely, but to physiology and anatomy that we must turn to grasp the cause of this instantaneous annihilation; and to understand these marvellous happenings we must consider not so much the intense strength of the poison injected as the importance of the organ injured.

What is there, then, at the point where the sting enters?

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 Hunting Wasps. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67110/pg67110-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.