The Wonders of Instinct Part 19

"Well, then?"

"It was done in the old days and so we go on doing it: that's all we know; and that's enough for us."

I leave it at that, persuaded that the memory of the Horse's skull, used once upon a time, is ineradicable, like all the rustic absurdities implanted by the ages.

We have, when all is said, but one means of protection, which is to watch and inspect the cabbage-leaves a.s.siduously and crush the slabs of eggs between our finger and thumb and the caterpillars with our feet.

Nothing is so effective as this method, which makes great demands on one's time and vigilance. What pains to obtain an unspoilt cabbage! And what a debt do we not owe to those humble sc.r.a.pers of the soil, those ragged heroes, who provide us with the wherewithal to live!

To eat and digest, to acc.u.mulate reserves whence the b.u.t.terfly will issue: that is the caterpillar's one and only business. The Cabbage-caterpillar performs it with insatiable gluttony. Incessantly it browses, incessantly digests: the supreme felicity of an animal which is little more than an intestine. There is never a distraction, unless it be certain see-saw movements which are particularly curious when several caterpillars are grazing side by side, abreast. Then, at intervals, all the heads in the row are briskly lifted and as briskly lowered, time after time, with an automatic precision worthy of a Prussian drill-ground. Can it be their method of intimidating an always possible aggressor? Can it be a manifestation of gaiety, when the wanton sun warms their full paunches? Whether sign of fear or sign of bliss, this is the only exercise that the gluttons allow themselves until the proper degree of plumpness is attained.

After a month's grazing, the voracious appet.i.te of my caged herd is a.s.suaged. The caterpillars climb the trelliswork in every direction, walk about anyhow, with their forepart raised and searching s.p.a.ce. Here and there, as they pa.s.s, the swaying herd put forth a thread. They wander restlessly, anxiously to travel afar. The exodus now prevented by the trellised enclosure I once saw under excellent conditions. At the advent of the cold weather, I had placed a few cabbage-stalks, covered with caterpillars, in a small greenhouse. Those who saw the common kitchen vegetable sumptuously lodged under gla.s.s, in the company of the pelargonium and the Chinese primrose, were astonished at my curious fancy. I let them smile. I had my plans: I wanted to find out how the family of the Large White b.u.t.terfly behaves when the cold weather sets in. Things happened just as I wished. At the end of November, the caterpillars, having grown to the desired extent, left the cabbages, one by one, and began to roam about the walls. None of them fixed himself there or made preparations for the transformation. I suspected that they wanted the choice of a spot in the open air, exposed to all the rigours of winter. I therefore left the door of the hothouse open. Soon the whole crowd had disappeared.

I found them dispersed all over the neighbouring walls, some thirty yards off. The thrust of a ledge, the eaves formed by a projecting bit of mortar served them as a shelter where the chrysalid moult took place and where the winter was pa.s.sed. The Cabbage-caterpillar possesses a robust const.i.tution, unsusceptible to torrid heat or icy cold. All that he needs for his metamorphosis is an airy lodging, free from permanent damp.

The inmates of my fold, therefore, move about for a few days on the trelliswork, anxious to travel afar in search of a wall. Finding none and realizing that time presses, they resign themselves. Each one, supporting himself on the trellis, first weaves around himself a thin carpet of white silk, which will form the sustaining layer at the time of the laborious and delicate work of the nymphosis. He fixes his rear-end to this base by a silk pad and his fore-part by a strap that pa.s.ses under his shoulders and is fixed on either side to the carpet.

Thus slung from his three fastenings, he strips himself of his larval apparel and turns into a chrysalis in the open air, with no protection save that of the wall, which the caterpillar would certainly have found had I not interfered.

Of a surety, he would be short-sighted indeed that pictured a world of good things prepared exclusively for our advantage. The earth, the great foster-mother, has a generous breast. At the very moment when nourishing matter is created, even though it be with our own zealous aid, she summons to the feast host upon host of consumers, who are all the more numerous and enterprising in proportion as the table is more amply spread. The cherry of our orchards is excellent eating: a maggot contends with us for its possession. In vain do we weigh suns and planets: our supremacy, which fathoms the universe, cannot prevent a wretched worm from levying its toll on the delicious fruit. We make ourselves at home in a cabbage bed: the sons of the Pieris make themselves at home there too. Preferring broccoli to wild radish, they profit where we have profited; and we have no remedy against their compet.i.tion save caterpillar-raids and egg-crushing, a thankless, tedious, and none too efficacious work.

Every creature has its claims on life. The Cabbage-caterpillar eagerly puts forth his own, so much so that the cultivation of the precious plant would be endangered if others concerned did not take part in its defence. These others are the auxiliaries (The author employs this word to denote the insects that are helpful, while describing as "ravagers"

the insects that are hurtful to the farmer's crops.--Translator's Note.), our helpers from necessity and not from sympathy. The words friend and foe, auxiliaries and ravagers are here the mere conventions of a language not always adapted to render the exact truth. He is our foe who eats or attacks our crops; our friend is he who feeds upon our foes. Everything is reduced to a frenzied contest of appet.i.tes.

In the name of the might that is mine, of trickery, of highway robbery, clear out of that, you, and make room for me: give me your seat at the banquet! That is the inexorable law in the world of animals and more or less, alas, in our own world as well!

Now, among our entomological auxiliaries, the smallest in size are the best at their work. One of them is charged with watching over the cabbages. She is so small, she works so discreetly that the gardener does not know her, has not even heard of her. Were he to see her by accident, flitting around the plant which she protects, he would take no notice of her, would not suspect the service rendered. I propose to set forth the tiny midget's deserts.

Scientists call her Microgaster glomeratus. What exactly was in the mind of the author of the name Microgaster, which means little belly?

Did he intend to allude to the insignificance of the abdomen? Not so.

However slight the belly may be, the insect nevertheless possesses one, correctly proportioned to the rest of the body, so that the cla.s.sic denomination, far from giving us any information, might mislead us, were we to trust it wholly. Nomenclature, which changes from day to day and becomes more and more cacophonous, is an unsafe guide. Instead of asking the animal what its name is, let us begin by asking:

"What can you do? What is your business?"

Well, the Microgaster's business is to exploit the Cabbage-caterpillar, a clearly-defined business, admitting of no possible confusion. Would we behold her works? In the spring, let us inspect the neighbourhood of the kitchen-garden. Be our eye never so un.o.bservant, we shall notice against the walls or on the withered gra.s.ses at the foot of the hedges some very small yellow coc.o.o.ns, heaped into ma.s.ses the size of a hazel-nut.

Beside each group lies a Cabbage-caterpillar, sometimes dying, sometimes dead, and always presenting a most tattered appearance. These coc.o.o.ns are the work of the Microgaster's family, hatched or on the point of hatching into the perfect stage; the caterpillar is the dish whereon that family has fed during its larval state. The epithet glomeratus, which accompanies the name of Microgaster, suggests this conglomeration of coc.o.o.ns. Let us collect the cl.u.s.ters as they are, without seeking to separate them, an operation which would demand both patience and dexterity, for the coc.o.o.ns are closely united by the inextricable tangle of their surface-threads. In May a swarm of pigmies will sally forth, ready to get to business in the cabbages.

Colloquial language uses the terms Midge and Gnat to describe the tiny insects which we often see dancing in a ray of sunlight. There is something of everything in those aerial ballets. It is possible that the persecutrix of the Cabbage-caterpillar is there, along with many another; but the name of Midge cannot properly be applied to her. He who says Midge says Fly, Dipteron, two-winged insect; and our friend has four wings, one and all adapted for flying. By virtue of this characteristic and others no less important, she belongs to the order of Hymenoptera. (This order includes the Ichneumon-flies, of whom the Microgaster is one.--Translator's Note.) No matter: as our language possesses no more precise term outside the scientific vocabulary, let us use the expression Midge, which pretty well conveys the general idea. Our Midge, the Microgaster, is the size of an average Gnat. She measures 3 or 4 millimetres. (.117 to .156 inch.--Translator's Note.) The two s.e.xes are equally numerous and wear the same costume, a black uniform, all but the legs, which are pale red. In spite of this likeness, they are easily distinguished. The male has an abdomen which is slightly flattened and, moreover, curved at the tip; the female, before the laying, has hers full and perceptibly distended by its ovular contents. This rapid sketch of the insect should be enough for our purpose.

If we wish to know the grub and especially to inform ourselves of its manner of living, it is advisable to rear in a cage a numerous herd of Cabbage-caterpillars. Whereas a direct search on the cabbages in our garden would give us but a difficult and uncertain harvest, by this means we shall daily have as many as we wish before our eyes.

In the course of June, which is the time when the caterpillars quit their pastures and go far afield to settle on some wall or other, those in my fold, finding nothing better, climb to the dome of the cage to make their preparations and to spin a supporting network for the chrysalid's needs. Among these spinners we see some weaklings working listlessly at their carpet. Their appearance makes us deem them in the grip of a mortal disease. I take a few of them and open their bellies, using a needle by way of a scalpel. What comes out is a bunch of green entrails, soaked in a bright yellow fluid, which is really the creature's blood. These tangled intestines swarm with little lazy grubs, varying greatly in number, from ten or twenty at least to sometimes half a hundred. They are the offspring of the Microgaster.

What do they feed on? The lens makes conscientious enquiries; nowhere does it manage to show me the vermin attacking solid nourishment, fatty tissues, muscles or other parts; nowhere do I see them bite, gnaw, or dissect. The following experiment will tell us more fully: I pour into a watch-gla.s.s the crowds extracted from the hospitable paunches. I flood them with caterpillar's blood obtained by simple p.r.i.c.ks; I place the preparation under a gla.s.s bell-jar, in a moist atmosphere, to prevent evaporation; I repeat the nourishing bath by means of fresh bleedings and give them the stimulant which they would have gained from the living caterpillar. Thanks to these precautions, my charges have all the appearance of excellent health; they drink and thrive. But this state of things cannot last long. Soon ripe for the transformation, my grubs leave the dining-room of the watch-gla.s.s as they would have left the caterpillar's belly; they come to the ground to try and weave their tiny coc.o.o.ns. They fail in the attempt and perish. They have missed a suitable support, that is to say, the silky carpet provided by the dying caterpillar. No matter: I have seen enough to convince me. The larvae of the Microgaster do not eat in the strict sense of the word; they live on soup; and that soup is the caterpillar's blood.

Examine the parasites closely and you shall see that their diet is bound to be a liquid one. They are little white grubs, neatly segmented, with a pointed forepart splashed with tiny black marks, as though the atom had been slaking its thirst in a drop of ink. It moves its hind-quarters slowly, without shifting its position. I place it under the microscope. The mouth is a pore, devoid of any apparatus for disintegration-work: it has no fangs, no h.o.r.n.y nippers, no mandibles; its attack is just a kiss. It does not chew, it sucks, it takes discreet sips at the moisture all around it.

The fact that it refrains entirely from biting is confirmed by my autopsy of the stricken caterpillars. In the patient's belly, notwithstanding the number of nurselings who hardly leave room for the nurse's entrails, everything is in perfect order; nowhere do we see a trace of mutilation. Nor does aught on the outside betray any havoc within. The exploited caterpillars graze and move about peacefully, giving no sign of pain. It is impossible for me to distinguish them from the unscathed ones in respect of appet.i.te and untroubled digestion.

When the time approaches to weave the carpet for the support of the chrysalis, an appearance of emaciation at last points to the evil that is at their vitals. They spin nevertheless. They are stoics who do not forget their duty in the hour of death. At last they expire, quite softly, not of any wounds, but of anaemia, even as a lamp goes out when the oil comes to an end. And it has to be. The living caterpillar, capable of feeding himself and forming blood, is a necessity for the welfare of the grubs; he has to last about a month, until the Microgaster's offspring have achieved their full growth. The two calendars synchronize in a remarkable way. When the caterpillar leaves off eating and makes his preparations for the metamorphosis, the parasites are ripe for the exodus. The bottle dries up when the drinkers cease to need it; but until that moment it must remain more or less well-filled, although becoming limper daily. It is important, therefore, that the caterpillar's existence be not endangered by wounds which, even though very tiny, would stop the working of the blood-fountains. With this intent, the drainers of the bottle are, in a manner of speaking, muzzled; they have by way of a mouth a pore that sucks without bruising.

The dying caterpillar continues to lay the silk of his carpet with a slow oscillation of the head. The moment now comes for the parasites to emerge. This happens in June and generally at nightfall. A breach is made on the ventral surface or else in the sides, never on the back: one breach only, contrived at a point of minor resistance, at the junction of two segments; for it is bound to be a toilsome business, in the absence of a set of filing-tools. Perhaps the grubs take one another's places at the point attacked and come by turns to work at it with a kiss.

In one short spell, the whole tribe issues through this single opening and is soon wriggling about, perched on the surface of the caterpillar.

The lens cannot perceive the hole, which closes on the instant. There is not even a haemorrhage: the bottle has been drained too thoroughly.

You must press it between your fingers to squeeze out a few drops of moisture and thus discover the place of exit.

Around the caterpillar, who is not always quite dead and who sometimes even goes on weaving his carpet a moment longer, the vermin at once begin to work at their coc.o.o.ns. The straw-coloured thread, drawn from the silk-glands by a backward jerk of the head, is first fixed to the white network of the caterpillar and then produces adjacent warp-beams, so that, by mutual entanglements, the individual works are welded together and form an agglomeration in which each of the grubs has its own cabin. For the moment, what is woven is not the real coc.o.o.n, but a general scaffolding which will facilitate the construction of the separate sh.e.l.ls. All these frames rest upon those adjoining and, mixing up their threads, become a common edifice wherein each grub contrives a shelter for itself. Here at last the real coc.o.o.n is spun, a pretty little piece of closely-woven work.

In my rearing-jars I obtain as many groups of these tiny sh.e.l.ls as my future experiments can wish for. Three-fourths of the caterpillars have supplied me with them, so ruthless has been the toll of the spring births. I lodge these groups, one by one, in separate gla.s.s tubes, thus forming a collection on which I can draw at will, while, in view of my experiments, I keep under observation the whole swarm produced by one caterpillar.

The adult Microgaster appears a fortnight later, in the middle of June.

There are fifty in the first tube examined. The riotous mult.i.tude is in the full enjoyment of the pairing-season, for the two s.e.xes always figure among the guests of any one caterpillar. What animation! What an orgy of love! The carnival of these pigmies bewilders the observer and makes his head swim.

Most of the females, wishful of liberty, plunge down to the waist between the gla.s.s of the tube and the plug of cotton-wool that closes the end turned to the light; but the lower halves remain free and form a circular gallery in front of which the males hustle one another, take one another's places and hastily operate. Each bides his turn, each attends to his little matters for a few moments and then makes way for his rivals and goes off to start again elsewhere. The turbulent wedding lasts all the morning and begins afresh next day, a mighty throng of couples embracing, separating and embracing once more.

There is every reason to believe that, in gardens, the mated ones, finding themselves in isolated couples, would keep quieter. Here, in the tube, things degenerate into a riot because the a.s.sembly is too numerous for the narrow s.p.a.ce.

What is lacking to complete its happiness? Apparently a little food, a few sugary mouthfuls extracted from the flowers. I serve up some provisions in the tubes: not drops of honey, in which the puny creatures would get stuck, but little strips of paper spread with that dainty. They come to them, take their stand on them and refresh themselves. The fare appears to agree with them. With this diet, renewed as the strips dry up, I can keep them in very good condition until the end of my inquisition.

There is another arrangement to be made. The colonists in my spare tubes are restless and quick of flight; they will have to be transferred presently to sundry vessels without my risking the loss of a good number, or even the whole lot, a loss which my hands, my forceps and other means of coercion would be unable to prevent by checking the nimble movements of the tiny prisoners. The irresistible attraction of the sunlight comes to my aid. If I lay one of my tubes horizontally on the table, turning one end towards the full light of a sunny window, the captives at once make for the brighter end and play about there for a long while, without seeking to retreat. If I turn the tube in the opposite direction, the crowd immediately shifts its quarters and collects at the other end. The brilliant sunlight is its great joy.

With this bait, I can send it whithersoever I please.

We will therefore place the new receptacle, jar or test-tube, on the table, pointing the closed end towards the window. At its mouth, we open one of the full tubes. No other precaution is needed: even though the mouth leaves a large interval free, the swarm hastens into the lighted chamber. All that remains to be done is to close the apparatus before moving it. The observer is now in control of the mult.i.tude, without appreciable losses, and is able to question it at will.

We will begin by asking:

"How do you manage to lodge your germs inside the caterpillar?"

This question and others of the same category, which ought to take precedence of everything else, are generally neglected by the impaler of insects, who cares more for the niceties of nomenclature than for glorious realities. He cla.s.sifies his subjects, dividing them into regiments with barbarous labels, a work which seems to him the highest expression of entomological science. Names, nothing but names: the rest hardly counts. The persecutor of the Pieris used to be called Microgaster, that is to say, little belly: to-day she is called Apanteles, that is to say, the incomplete. What a fine step forward! We now know all about it!

Can our friend at least tell us how "the Little Belly" or "the Incomplete" gets into the caterpillar? Not a bit of it! A book which, judging by its recent date, should be the faithful echo of our actual knowledge, informs us that the Microgaster inserts her eggs direct into the caterpillar's body. It goes on to say that the parasitic vermin inhabit the chrysalis, whence they make their way out by perforating the stout h.o.r.n.y wrapper. Hundreds of times have I witnessed the exodus of the grubs ripe for weaving their coc.o.o.ns; and the exit has always been made through the skin of the caterpillar and never through the armour of the chrysalis. The fact that its mouth is a mere clinging pore, deprived of any offensive weapon, would even lead me to believe that the grub is incapable of perforating the chrysalid's covering.

This proved error makes me doubt the other proposition, though logical, after all, and agreeing with the methods followed by a host of parasites. No matter: my faith in what I read in print is of the slightest; I prefer to go straight to facts. Before making a statement of any kind, I want to see, what I call seeing. It is a slower and more laborious process; but it is certainly much safer.

I will not undertake to lie in wait for what takes place on the cabbages in the garden: that method is too uncertain and besides does not lend itself to precise observation. As I have in hand the necessary materials, to wit, my collection of tubes swarming with the parasites newly hatched into the adult form, I will operate on the little table in my animals' laboratory. A jar with a capacity of about a litre (About 1 3/4 pints, or .22 gallon.--Translator's Note.) is placed on the table, with the bottom turned towards the window in the sun. I put into it a cabbage-leaf covered with caterpillars, sometimes fully developed, sometimes half-way, sometimes just out of the egg. A strip of honeyed paper will serve the Microgaster as a dining room, if the experiment is destined to take some time. Lastly, by the method of transfer which I described above, I send the inmates of one of my tubes into the apparatus. Once the jar is closed, there is nothing left to do but to let things take their course and to keep an a.s.siduous watch, for days and weeks, if need be. Nothing worth remarking can escape me.

The caterpillars graze placidly, heedless of their terrible attendants.

If some giddy-pates in the turbulent swarm pa.s.s over the caterpillars'

spines, these draw up their fore-part with a jerk and as suddenly lower it again; and that is all: the intruders forthwith decamp. Nor do the latter seem to contemplate any harm: they refresh themselves on the honey-smeared strip, they come and go tumultuously. Their short flights may land them, now in one place, now in another, on the browsing herd, but they pay no attention to it. What we see is casual meetings, not deliberate encounters.

In vain I change the flock of caterpillars and vary their age; in vain I change the squad of parasites; in vain I follow events in the jar for long hours, morning and evening, both in a dim light and in the full glare of the sun: I succeed in seeing nothing, absolutely nothing, on the parasite's side, that resembles an attack. No matter what the ill-informed authors say--ill-informed because they had not the patience to see for themselves--the conclusion at which I arrive is positive: to inject the germs, the Microgaster never attacks the caterpillars.

The invasion, therefore, is necessarily effected through the b.u.t.terfly's eggs themselves, as experiment will prove. My broad jar would tell against the inspection of the troop, kept at too great a distance by the gla.s.s enclosure, and I therefore select a tube an inch wide. I place in this a shred of cabbage-leaf, bearing a slab of eggs, as laid by the b.u.t.terfly. I next introduce the inmates of one of my spare vessels. A strip of paper smeared with honey accompanies the new arrivals.

This happens early in July. Soon, the females are there, fussing about, sometimes to the extent of blackening the whole slab of yellow eggs.

They inspect the treasure, flutter their wings and brush their hind-legs against each other, a sign of keen satisfaction. They sound the heap, probe the interstices with their antennae and tap the individual eggs with their palpi; then, this one here, that one there, they quickly apply the tip of their abdomen to the egg selected. Each time, we see a slender, h.o.r.n.y p.r.i.c.kle darting from the ventral surface, close to the end. This is the instrument that deposits the germ under the film of the egg; it is the inoculation-needle. The operation is performed calmly and methodically, even when several mothers are working at one and the same time. Where one has been, a second goes, followed by a third, a fourth and others yet, nor am I able definitely to see the end of the visits paid to the same egg. Each time, the needle enters and inserts a germ.

It is impossible, in such a crowd, for the eye to follow the successive mothers who hasten to lay in each; but there is one quite practicable method by which we can estimate the number of germs introduced into a single egg, which is, later, to open the ravaged caterpillars and count the grubs which they contain. A less repugnant means is to number the little coc.o.o.ns heaped up around each dead caterpillar. The total will tell us how many germs were injected, some by the same mother returning several times to the egg already treated, others by different mothers.

Well, the number of these coc.o.o.ns varies greatly. Generally, it fluctuates in the neighbourhood of twenty, but I have come across as many as sixty-five; and nothing tells me that this is the extreme limit. What hideous industry for the extermination of a b.u.t.terfly's progeny!