Social Life in the Insect World Part 21

The Bruchus is not a sedentary inhabitant of granaries: it requires the open air, the sun, the liberty of the fields. Frugal in everything, it absolutely disdains the hard tissues of the vegetable; its tiny mouth is content with a few honeyed mouthfuls, enjoyed upon the flowers. The larvae, on the other hand, require the tender tissues of the green pea growing in the pod. For these reasons the granary knows no final multiplication on the part of the despoiler.

The origin of the evil is in the kitchen-garden. It is there that we ought to keep a watch on the misdeeds of the Bruchus, were it not for the fact that we are nearly always weaponless when it comes to fighting an insect. Indestructible by reason of its numbers, its small size, and its cunning, the little creature laughs at the anger of man. The gardener curses it, but the weevil is not disturbed: it imperturbably continues its trade of levying tribute. Happily we have a.s.sistants more patient and more clear-sighted than ourselves.

During the first week of August, when the mature Bruchus begins to emerge, I notice a little Chalcidian, the protector of our peas. In my rearing-cages it issues under my eyes in abundance from the peas infested by the grub of the weevil. The female has a reddish head and thorax; the abdomen is black, with a long augur-like oviscapt. The male, a little smaller, is black. Both s.e.xes have reddish claws and thread-like antennae.

In order to escape from the pea the slayer of the weevil makes an opening in the centre of the circular trap-door which the grub of the weevil prepared in view of its future deliverance. The slain has prepared the way for the slayer. After this detail the rest may be divined.

When the preliminaries to the metamorphosis are completed, when the pa.s.sage of escape is bored and furnished with its lid of superficial membrane, the female Chalcidian arrives in a busy mood. She inspects the peas, still on the vine, and enclosed in their pods; she auscultates them with her antennae; she discovers, hidden under the general envelope, the weak points in the epidermic covering of the peas. Then, applying her oviscapt, she thrusts it through the side of the pod and perforates the circular trap-door. However far withdrawn into the centre of the pea, the Bruchus, whether larvae or nymph, is reached by the long oviduct. It receives an egg in its tender flesh, and the thing is done.

Without possibility of defence, since it is by now a somnolent grub or a helpless pupa, the embryo weevil is eaten until nothing but skin remains. What a pity that we cannot at will a.s.sist the multiplication of this eager exterminator! Alas! our a.s.sistants have got us in a vicious circle, for if we wished to obtain the help of any great number of Chalcidians we should be obliged in the first place to breed a multiplicity of Bruchidae.

CHAPTER XIX

AN INVADER.--THE HARICOT-WEEVIL

If there is one vegetable on earth that more than any other is a gift of the G.o.ds, it is the haricot bean. It has all the virtues: it forms a soft paste upon the tongue; it is extremely palatable, abundant, inexpensive, and highly nutritious. It is a vegetable meat which, without being b.l.o.o.d.y and repulsive, is the equivalent of the horrors outspread upon the butcher's slab. To recall its services the more emphatically, the Provencal idiom calls it the _gounflo-gus_--the filler of the poor.

Blessed Bean, consoler of the wretched, right well indeed do you fill the labourer, the honest, skilful worker who has drawn a low number in the crazy lottery of life. Kindly Haricot, with three drops of oil and a dash of vinegar you were the favourite dish of my young years; and even now, in the evening of my days, you are welcome to my humble porringer.

We shall be friends to the last.

To-day it is not my intention to sing your merits; I wish simply to ask you a question, being curious: What is the country of your origin? Did you come from Central Asia with the broad bean and the pea? Did you make part of that collection of seeds which the first pioneers of culture brought us from their gardens? Were you known to antiquity?

Here the insect, an impartial and well-informed witness, answers: "No; in our country antiquity was not acquainted with the haricot. The precious vegetable came hither by the same road as the broad bean. It is a foreigner, and of comparatively recent introduction into Europe."

The reply of the insect merits serious examination, supported as it is by extremely plausible arguments. Here are the facts. For years attentive to matters agricultural, I had never seen haricots attacked by any insect whatever; not even by the Bruchidae, the licensed robbers of leguminous seeds.

On this point I have questioned my peasant neighbours. They are men of the extremest vigilance in all that concerns their crops. To steal their property is an abominable crime, swiftly discovered. Moreover, the housewife, who individually examines all beans intended for the saucepan, would inevitably find the malefactor.

All those I have spoken to replied to my questions with a smile in which I read their lack of faith in my knowledge of insects. "Sir," they said, "you must know that there are never grubs in the haricot bean. It is a blessed vegetable, respected by the weevil. The pea, the broad bean, the vetch, and the chick-pea all have their vermin; but the haricot, _lou gounflo-gus_, never. What should we do, poor folk as we are, if the _Courcoussoun_ robbed us of it?"

The fact is that the weevil despises the haricot; a very curious dislike if we consider how industriously the other vegetables of the same family are attacked. All, even the beggarly lentil, are eagerly exploited; whilst the haricot, so tempting both as to size and flavour, remains untouched. It is incomprehensible. Why should the Bruchus, which without hesitation pa.s.ses from the excellent to the indifferent, and from the indifferent to the excellent, disdain this particularly toothsome seed?

It leaves the forest vetch for the pea, and the pea for the broad bean, as pleased with the small as with the large, yet the temptations of the haricot bean leave it indifferent. Why?

Apparently because the haricot is unknown to it. The other leguminous plants, whether native or of Oriental origin, have been familiar to it for centuries; it has tested their virtues year by year, and, confiding in the lessons of the past, it bases its forethought for the future upon ancient custom. The haricot is avoided as a newcomer, whose merits it has not yet learned.

The insect emphatically informs us that with us the haricot is of recent date. It has come to us from a distant country: and a.s.suredly from the New World. Every edible vegetable attracts its consumers. If it had originated in the Old World the haricot would have had its licensed consumers, as have the pea, the lentil, and the broad bean. The smallest leguminous seed, if barely bigger than a pin's head, nourishes its weevil; a dwarf which patiently nibbles it and excavates a dwelling; but the plump, delicious haricot is spared.

This astonishing immunity can have only one explanation: like the potato and the maize-plant, the haricot is a gift of the New World. It arrived in Europe without the company of the insect which exploits it in its native country; it has found in our fields another world of insects, which have despised it because they did not know it. Similarly the potato and the ear of maize are untouched in France unless their American consumers are accidentally imported with them.

The verdict of the insect is confirmed by the negative testimony of the ancient cla.s.sics; the haricot never appears on the table of the Greek or Roman peasant. In the second Eclogue of Virgil Thestylis prepares the repast of the harvesters:--

Thestylis et rapido fessis messoribus aestu Allia serpyllumque herbas contundit olentes.

This mixture is the equivalent of the _aoli_, dear to the Provencal palate. It sounds very well in verse, but is not very substantial. On such an occasion men would look for that fundamental dish, the plate of red haricots, seasoned with chopped onions. All in good time; this at least would ballast the stomach. Thus refreshed in the open air, listening to the song of the cigales, the gang of harvesters would take their mid-day rest and gently digest their meal in the shadows of the sheaves. Our modern Thestylis, differing little from her cla.s.sic sister, would take good care not to forget the _gounflo-gus_, that economical resource of large appet.i.tes. The Thestylis of the past did not think of providing it because she did not know it.

The same author shows us t.i.tyrus offering a night's hospitality to his friend Meliboeus, who has been driven from his property by the soldiers of Octavius, and goes limping behind his flock of goats. We shall have, says t.i.tyrus, chestnuts, cheese, and fruits. History does not say if Meliboeus allowed himself to be tempted. It is a pity; for during the frugal meal we might have learned in a more explicit fashion that the shepherds of the ancient world were not acquainted with the haricot.

Ovid tells us, in a delightful pa.s.sage, of the manner in which Philemon and Baucis received the G.o.ds unawares as guests in their humble cottage.

On the three-legged table, which was levelled by means of a potsherd under one of the legs, they served cabbage soup, rusty bacon, eggs poached for a minute in the hot cinders, cornel-berries pickled in brine, honey, and fruits. In this rustic abundance one dish was lacking; an essential dish, which the Baucis of our countryside would never forget. After bacon soup would follow the obligatory plate of haricots.

Why did Ovid, so prodigal of detail, neglect to mention a dish so appropriate to the occasion? The reply is the same as before: because he did not know of it.

In vain have I recapitulated all that my reading has taught me concerning the rustic dietary of ancient times; I can recollect no mention of the haricot. The worker in the vineyard and the harvester have their lupins, broad beans, peas, and lentils, but never the bean of beans, the haricot.

The haricot has a reputation of another kind. It is a source of flatulence; you eat it, as the saying is, and then you take a walk. It lends itself to the gross pleasantries loved of the populace; especially when they are formulated by the shameless genius of an Aristophanes or a Plautus. What merriment over a simple allusion to the sonorous bean, what guffaws from the throats of Athenian sailors or Roman porters! Did the two masters, in the unfettered gaiety of a language less reserved than our own, ever mention the virtues of the haricot? No; they are absolutely silent concerning the trumpet-voiced vegetable.

The name of the bean is a matter for reflection. It is of an unfamiliar sound, having no affinity with our language. By its unlikeness to our native combinations of sounds, it makes one think of the West Indies or South America, as do _caoutchouc_ and _cacao_. Does the word as a matter of fact come from the American Indians? Did we receive, together with the vegetable, the name by which it is known in its native country?

Perhaps; but how are we to know? Haricot, fantastic haricot, you set us a curious philological problem.

It is also known in French as _faseole_, or _flageolet_. The Provencal calls it _faiou_ and _faviou_; the Catalan, _fayol_; the Spaniard, _faseolo_; the Portuguese, _feyao_; the Italian, _f.a.giuolo_. Here I am on familiar ground: the languages of the Latin family have preserved, with the inevitable modifications, the ancient word _faseolus_.

Now, if I consult my dictionary I find: _faselus_, _faseolus_, _phaseolus_, haricot. Learned lexicographer, permit me to remark that your translation is incorrect: _faselus_, _faseolus_ cannot mean haricot. The incontestable proof is in the Georgics, where Virgil tells us at what season we must sow the _faselus_. He says:--

Si vero viciamque seres vilemque faselum ...

Haud obscura cadens mittet tibi signa Bootes; Incipe, et ad medias s.e.m.e.ntem extende pruinas.

Nothing is clearer than the precept of the poet who was so admirably familiar with all matters agricultural; the sowing of the _faselus_ must be commenced when the constellation of Bootes disappears at the set of sun, that is, in October; and it is to be continued until the middle of the winter.

These conditions put the haricot out of the running: it is a delicate plant, which would never survive the lightest frost. Winter would be fatal to it, even under Italian skies. More refractory to cold on account of the country of their origin, peas, broad beans, and vetches, and other leguminous plants have nothing to fear from an autumn sowing, and prosper during the winter provided the climate be fairly mild.

What then is represented by the _faselus_ of the Georgics, that problematical vegetable which has transmitted its name to the haricot in the Latin tongues? Remembering that the contemptuous epithet _vilis_ is used by the poet in qualification, I am strongly inclined to regard it as the cultivated vetch, the big square pea, the little-valued _ja.s.so_ of the Provencal peasant.

The problem of the haricot stood thus, almost elucidated by the testimony of the insect world alone, when an unexpected witness gave me the last word of the enigma. It was once again a poet, and a famous poet, M. Jose-Maria de Heredia, who came to the aid of the naturalist.

Without suspecting the service he was rendering, a friend of mine, the village schoolmaster, lent me a magazine[9] in which I read the following conversation between the master-sonneteer and a lady journalist, who was anxious to know which of his own works he preferred.

"What would you have me say?" said the poet.

"I do not know what to say, I do not know which sonnet I prefer; I have taken horrible pains with all of them.... But you, which do you prefer?"

"My dear master, how can I choose out of so many jewels, when each one is perfect in its beauty? You flash pearls, emeralds, and rubies before my astonished eyes: how should I decide to prefer the emerald to the pearl? I am transported by admiration of the whole necklace."

"Well, as for me, there is something I am more proud of than of all my sonnets, and which has done much more for my reputation than my verses."

I opened my eyes wide, "What is that?" I asked. The master looked at me mischievously; then, with that beautiful light in his eyes which fires his youthful countenance, he said triumphantly--

"It is my discovery of the etymology of the word haricot!"

I was so amazed that I forgot to laugh.

"I am perfectly serious in telling you this."

"I know, my dear master, of your reputation for profound scholarship: but to imagine, on that account, that you were famed for your discovery of the etymology of haricot--I should never have expected it! Will you tell me how you made the discovery?"

"Willingly. See now: I found some information respecting the haricot while studying that fine seventeenth-century work of natural history by Hernandez: _De Historia plantarum novi orbis_. The word haricot was unknown in France until the seventeenth century: people used the word _feve_ or _phaseol_: in Mexican, _ayacot_. Thirty species of haricot were cultivated in Mexico before the conquest. They are still known as _ayacot_, especially the red haricot, spotted with black or violet. One day at the house of Gaston Paris I met a famous scholar. Hearing my name, he rushed at me and asked if it was I who had discovered the etymology of the word haricot. He was absolutely ignorant of the fact that I had written verses and published the _Trophees_."--

A very pretty whim, to count the jewellery of his famous sonnets as second in importance to the nomenclature of a vegetable! I in my turn was delighted with his _ayacot_. How right I was to suspect the outlandish word of American Indian origin! How right the insect was, in testifying, in its own fashion, that the precious bean came to us from the New World! While still retaining its original name--or something sufficiently like it--the bean of Montezuma, the Aztec _ayacot_, has migrated from Mexico to the kitchen-gardens of Europe.