Social Life in the Insect World Part 8

We will not laugh at the credulous victim; many a remedy triumphantly puffed on the latter pages of the newspapers and magazines is no more effectual. Moreover, this rural simplicity is surpa.s.sed by certain old books which form the tomb of the science of a past age. An English naturalist of the sixteenth century, the well-known physician, Thomas Moffat, informs us that children lost in the country would inquire their way of the Mantis. The insect consulted would extend a limb, indicating the direction to be taken, and, says the author, scarcely ever was the insect mistaken. This pretty story is told in Latin, with an adorable simplicity.

CHAPTER VIII

THE GOLDEN GARDENER.--ITS NUTRIMENT

In writing the first lines of this chapter I am reminded of the slaughter-pens of Chicago; of those horrible meat factories which in the course of the year cut up one million and eighty thousand bullocks and seventeen hundred thousand swine, which enter a train of machinery alive and issue transformed into cans of preserved meat, sausages, lard, and rolled hams. I am reminded of these establishments because the beetle I am about to speak of will show us a compatible celerity of butchery.

In a s.p.a.cious, glazed insectorium I have twenty-five Carabi aurati. At present they are motionless, lying beneath a piece of board which I gave them for shelter. Their bellies cooled by the sand, their backs warmed by the board, which is visited by the sun, they slumber and digest their food. By good luck I chance upon a procession of pine-caterpillars, in process of descending from their tree in search of a spot suitable for burial, the prelude to the phase of the subterranean chrysalis. Here is an excellent flock for the slaughter-house of the Carabi.

I capture them and place them in the insectorium. The procession is quickly re-formed; the caterpillars, to the number of perhaps a hundred and fifty, move forward in an undulating line. They pa.s.s near the piece of board, one following the other like the pigs at Chicago. The moment is propitious. I cry Havoc! and let loose the dogs of war: that is to say, I remove the plank.

The sleepers immediately awake, scenting the abundant prey. One of them runs forward; three, four, follow; the whole a.s.sembly is aroused; those who are buried emerge; the whole band of cut-throats falls upon the pa.s.sing flock. It is a sight never to be forgotten. The mandibles of the beetles are at work in all directions; the procession is attacked in the van, in the rear, in the centre; the victims are wounded on the back or the belly at random. The furry skins are gaping with wounds; their contents escape in knots of entrails, bright green with their aliment, the needles of the pine-tree; the caterpillars writhe, struggling with loop-like movements, gripping the sand with their feet, dribbling and gnas.h.i.+ng their mandibles. Those as yet unwounded are digging desperately in the attempt to take refuge underground. Not one succeeds. They are scarcely half buried before some beetle runs to them and destroys them by an eviscerating wound.

If this ma.s.sacre did not occur in a dumb world we should hear all the horrible tumult of the slaughter-houses of Chicago. But only the ear of the mind can hear the shrieks and lamentations of the eviscerated victims. For myself, I possess this ear, and am full of remorse for having provoked such sufferings.

Now the beetles are rummaging in all directions through the heap of dead and dying, each tugging and tearing at a morsel which he carries off to swallow in peace, away from the inquisitive eyes of his fellows.

This mouthful disposed of, another is hastily cut from the body of some victim, and the process is repeated so long as there are bodies left. In a few minutes the procession is reduced to a few shreds of still palpitating flesh.

There were a hundred and fifty caterpillars; the butchers were twenty-five. This amounts to six victims dispatched by each beetle. If the insect had nothing to do but to kill, like the knackers in the meat factories, and if the staff numbered a hundred--a very modest figure as compared with the staff of a lard or bacon factory--then the total number of victims, in a day of ten hours, would be thirty-six thousand.

No Chicago "cannery" ever rivalled such a result.

The speed of a.s.sa.s.sination is the more remarkable when we consider the difficulties of attack. The beetle has no endless chain to seize its victim by one leg, hoist it up, and swing it along to the butcher's knife; it has no sliding plank to hold the victim's head beneath the pole-axe of the knacker; it has to fall upon its prey, overpower it, and avoid its feet and its mandibles. Moreover, the beetle eats its prey on the spot as it kills. What slaughter there would be if the insect confined itself to killing!

What do we learn from the slaughter-houses of Chicago and the fate of the beetle's victims? This: That the man of elevated morality is so far a very rare exception. Under the skin of the civilised being there lurks almost always the ancestor, the savage contemporary of the cave-bear.

True humanity does not yet exist; it is growing, little by little, created by the ferment of the centuries and the dictates of conscience; but it progresses towards the highest with heartbreaking slowness.

It was only yesterday that slavery finally disappeared: the basis of the ancient social organism; only yesterday was it realised that man, even though black, is really man and deserves to be treated accordingly.

What formerly was woman? She was what she is to-day in the East: a gentle animal without a soul. The question was long discussed by the learned. The great divine of the seventeenth century, Bossuet himself, regarded woman as the diminutive of man. The proof was in the origin of Eve: she was the superfluous bone, the thirteenth rib which Adam possessed in the beginning. It has at last been admitted that woman possesses a soul like our own, but even superior in tenderness and devotion. She has been allowed to educate herself, which she has done at least as zealously as her coadjutor. But the law, that gloomy cavern which is still the lurking-place of so many barbarities, continues to regard her as an incapable and a minor. The law in turn will finally surrender to the truth.

The abolition of slavery and the education of woman: these are two enormous strides upon the path of moral progress. Our descendants will go farther. They will see, with a lucidity capable of piercing every obstacle, that war is the most hopeless of all absurdities. That our conquerors, victors of battles and destroyers of nations, are detestable scourges; that a clasp of the hand is preferable to a rifle-shot; that the happiest people is not that which possesses the largest battalions, but that which labours in peace and produces abundantly; and that the amenities of existence do not necessitate the existence of frontiers, beyond which we meet with all the annoyances of the custom-house, with its officials who search our pockets and rifle our luggage.

Our descendants will see this and many other marvels which to-day are extravagant dreams. To what ideal height will the process of evolution lead mankind? To no very magnificent height, it is to be feared. We are afflicted by an indelible taint, a kind of original sin, if we may call sin a state of things with which our will has nothing to do. We are made after a certain pattern and we can do nothing to change ourselves. We are marked with the mark of the beast, the taint of the belly, the inexhaustible source of b.e.s.t.i.a.lity.

The intestine rules the world. In the midst of our most serious affairs there intrudes the imperious question of bread and b.u.t.ter. So long as there are stomachs to digest--and as yet we are unable to dispense with them--we must find the wherewithal to fill them, and the powerful will live by the sufferings of the weak. Life is a void that only death can fill. Hence the endless butchery by which man nourishes himself, no less than beetles and other creatures; hence the perpetual holocausts which make of this earth a knacker's yard, beside which the slaughter-houses of Chicago are as nothing.

But the feasters are legion, and the feast is not abundant in proportion. Those that have not are envious of those that have; the hungry bare their teeth at the satisfied. Then follows the battle for the right of possession. Man raises armies; to defend his harvests, his granaries, and his cellars, he resorts to warfare. When shall we see the end of it? Alas, and many times alas! As long as there are wolves in the world there must be watch-dogs to defend the flock.

This train of thought has led us far away from our beetles. Let us return to them. What was my motive in provoking the ma.s.sacre of this peaceful procession of caterpillars who were on the point of self-burial when I gave them over to the butchers? Was it to enjoy the spectacle of a frenzied ma.s.sacre? By no means; I have always pitied the sufferings of animals, and the smallest life is worthy of respect. To overcome this pity there needed the exigencies of scientific research--exigencies which are often cruel.

In this case the subject of research was the habits of the Carabus auratus, the little vermin-killer of our gardens, who is therefore vulgarly known as the Gardener Beetle. How far is this t.i.tle deserved?

What game does the Gardener Beetle hunt? From what vermin does he free our beds and borders? His dealings with the procession of pine-caterpillars promise much. Let us continue our inquiry.

On various occasions about the end of April the gardens afford me the sight of such processions, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. I capture them and place them in the vivarium. Bloodshed commences the moment the banquet is served. The caterpillars are eviscerated; each by a single beetle, or by several simultaneously. In less than fifteen minutes the flock is completely exterminated. Nothing remains but a few shapeless fragments, which are carried hither and thither, to be consumed at leisure under the shelter of the wooden board. One well-fed beetle decamps, his booty in his jaws, hoping to finish his feast in peace. He is met by companions who are attracted by the morsel hanging from the mandibles of the fugitive, and audaciously attempt to rob him.

First two, then three, they all endeavour to deprive the legitimate owner of his prize. Each seizes the fragment, tugs at it, commences to swallow it without further ado. There is no actual battle; no violent a.s.saults, as in the case of dogs disputing a bone. Their efforts are confined to the attempted theft. If the legitimate owner retains his hold they consume his booty in common, mandibles to mandibles, until the fragment is torn or bitten through, and each retires with his mouthful.

As I found to my cost in bygone experiments, the pine-caterpillar wields a violently corrosive poison, which produces a painful rash upon the hands. It must therefore, one would think, form a somewhat highly seasoned diet. The beetles, however, delight in it. No matter how many flocks I provide them with, they are all consumed. But no one, that I know of, has ever found the Golden Gardener and its larva in the silken coc.o.o.ns of the Bombyx. I do not expect ever to make such a discovery.

These coc.o.o.ns are inhabited only in winter, when the Gardener is indifferent to food, and lies torpid in the earth. In April, however, when the processions of larvae are seeking a suitable site for burial and metamorphosis, the Gardener should profit largely by its good fortune should it by any chance encounter them.

The furry nature of the victim does not in the least incommode the beetle; but the hairiest of all our caterpillars, the Hedgehog Caterpillar, with its undulating mane, partly red and partly black, does seem to be too much for the beetle. Day after day it wanders about the vivarium in company with the a.s.sa.s.sins. The latter apparently ignore its presence. From time to time one of them will halt, stroll round the hairy creature, examine it, and try to penetrate the tangled fleece.

Immediately repulsed by the long, dense palisade of hairs, he retires without inflicting a wound, and the caterpillar proceeds upon its way with undulating mane, in pride and security.

But this state of things cannot last. In a hungry moment, emboldened moreover by the presence of his fellows, the cowardly creature decides upon a serious attack. There are four of them; they industriously attack the caterpillar, which finally succ.u.mbs, a.s.saulted before and behind. It is eviscerated and swallowed as greedily as though it were a defenceless grub.

According to the hazard of discovery, I provision my menagerie with various caterpillars, some smooth and others hairy. All are accepted with the utmost eagerness, so long as they are of average size as compared with the beetles themselves. If too small they are despised, as they would not yield a sufficient mouthful. If they are too large the beetle is unable to handle them. The caterpillars of the Sphinx moth and the Great Peac.o.c.k moth, for example, would fall an easy prey to the beetle were it not that at the first bite of the a.s.sailant the intended victim, by a contortion of its powerful flanks, sends the former flying. After several attacks, all of which end by the beetle being flung back to some considerable distance, the insect regretfully abandons his prey. I have kept two strong and lively caterpillars for a fortnight in the cage of my golden beetles, and nothing more serious occurred. The trick of the suddenly extended posterior was too much for the ferocious mandibles.

The chief utility of the Golden Gardener lies in its extermination of all caterpillars that are not too powerful to attack. It has one limitation, however: it is not a climber. It hunts on the ground; never in the foliage overhead. I have never seen it exploring the twigs of even the smallest of bushes. When caged it pays no attention to the most enticing caterpillars if the latter take refuge in a tuft of thyme, at a few inches above the ground. This is a great pity. If only the beetle could climb how rapidly three or four would rid our cabbages of that grievous pest, the larva of the white cabbage b.u.t.terfly! Alas! the best have always some failing, some vice.

To exterminate caterpillars: that is the true vocation of the Golden Gardener. It is annoying that it can give us but little or no a.s.sistance in ridding us of another plague of the kitchen-garden: the snail. The slime of the snail is offensive to the beetle; it is safe from the latter unless crippled, half crushed, or projecting from the sh.e.l.l. Its relatives, however, do not share this dislike. The h.o.r.n.y Procrustes, the great Scarabicus, entirely black and larger than the Carabus, attacks the snail most valiantly, and empties its sh.e.l.l to the bottom, in spite of the desperate secretion of slime. It is a pity that the Procrustes is not more frequently found in our gardens; it would be an excellent gardener's a.s.sistant.

CHAPTER IX

THE GOLDEN GARDENER--COURTs.h.i.+P

It is generally recognized that the Carabus auratus is an active exterminator of caterpillars; on this account in particular it deserves its t.i.tle of Gardener Beetle; it is the vigilant policeman of our kitchen-gardens, our flower-beds and herbaceous borders. If my inquiries add nothing to its established reputation in this respect, they will nevertheless, in the following pages, show the insect in a light as yet unsuspected. The ferocious beast of prey, the ogre who devours all creatures that are not too strong for him, is himself killed and eaten: by his fellows, and by many others.

Standing one day in the shadow of the plane-trees that grow before my door, I see a Golden Gardener go by as if on pressing business. The pilgrim is well met; he will go to swell the contents of my vivarium. In capturing him I notice that the extremities of the wing-covers are slightly damaged. Is this the result of a struggle between rivals? There is nothing to tell me. The essential thing is that the insect should not be handicapped by any serious injury. Inspected, and found to be without any serious wound and fit for service, it is introduced into the gla.s.s dwelling of its twenty-five future companions.

Next day I look for the new inmate. It is dead. Its comrades have attacked it during the night and have cleaned out its abdomen, insufficiently protected by the damaged wing-covers. The operation has been performed very cleanly, without any dismemberment. Claws, head, corselet, all are correctly in place; the abdomen only has a gaping wound through which its contents have been removed. What remains is a kind of golden sh.e.l.l, formed of the two conjoined elytra. The sh.e.l.l of an oyster emptied of its inmate is not more empty.

This result astonishes me, for I have taken good care that the cage should never be long without food. The snail, the pine-c.o.c.kchafer, the Praying Mantis, the lob-worm, the caterpillar, and other favourite insects, have all been given in alternation and in sufficient quant.i.ties. In devouring a brother whose damaged armour lent itself to any easy attack my beetles had not the excuse of hunger.

Is it their custom to kill the wounded and to eviscerate such of their fellows as suffer damage? Pity is unknown among insects. At the sight of the desperate struggles of a crippled fellow-creature none of the same family will cry a halt, none will attempt to come to its aid. Among the carnivorous insects the matter may develop to a tragic termination. With them, the pa.s.sers-by will often run to the cripple. But do they do so in order to help it? By no means: merely to taste its flesh, and, if they find it agreeable, to perform the most radical cure of its ills by devouring it.

It is possible, therefore, that the Gardener with the injured wing-covers had tempted his fellows by the sight of his imperfectly covered back. They saw in their defenceless comrade a permissible subject for dissection. But do they respect one another when there is no previous wound? At first there was every appearance that their relations were perfectly pacific. During their sanguinary meals there is never a scuffle between the feasters; nothing but mere mouth-to-mouth thefts.

There are no quarrels during the long siestas in the shelter of the board. Half buried in the cool earth, my twenty-five subjects slumber and digest their food in peace; they lie sociably near one another, each in his little trench. If I raise the plank they awake and are off, running hither and thither, constantly encountering one another without hostilities.

The profoundest peace is reigning, and to all appearances will last for ever, when in the early days of June I find a dead Gardener. Its limbs are intact; it is reduced to the condition of a mere golden husk; like the defenceless beetle I have already spoken of, it is as empty as an oyster-sh.e.l.l. Let us examine the remains. All is intact, save the huge breach in the abdomen. So the insect was sound and unhurt when the others attacked it.

A few days pa.s.s, and another Gardener is killed and dealt with as before, with no disorder in the component pieces of its armour. Let us place the dead insect on its belly; it is to all appearances untouched.

Place it on its back; it is hollow, and has no trace of flesh left beneath its carapace. A little later, and I find another empty relic; then another, and yet another, until the population of my menagerie is rapidly shrinking. If this insensate ma.s.sacre continues I shall soon find my cage depopulated.

Are my beetles h.o.a.ry with age? Do they die a natural death, and do the survivors then clean out the bodies? Or is the population being reduced at the expense of sound and healthy insects? It is not easy to elucidate the matter, since the atrocities are commonly perpetrated in the night.

But, finally, with vigilance, on two occasions, I surprise the beetles at their work in the light of day.

Towards the middle of June a female attacks a male before my eyes. The male is recognisable by his slightly smaller size. The operation commences. Raising the ends of the wing-covers, the a.s.sailant seizes her victim by the extremity of the abdomen, from the dorsal side. She pulls at him furiously, eagerly munching with her mandibles. The victim, who is in the prime of life, does not defend himself, nor turn upon his a.s.sailant. He pulls his hardest in the opposite direction to free himself from those terrible fangs; he advances and recoils as he is overpowered by or overpowers the a.s.sa.s.sin; and there his resistance ends. The struggle lasts a quarter of an hour. Other beetles, pa.s.sing by, call a halt, and seem to say "My turn next!" Finally, redoubling his efforts, the male frees himself and flies. If he had not succeeded in escaping the ferocious female would undoubtedly have eviscerated him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GOLDEN GARDENER: THE MATING SEASON OVER, THE MALES ARE EVISCERATED BY THE FEMALES.]

A few days later I witness a similar scene, but this time the tragedy is played to the end. Once more it is a female who seizes a male from behind. With no other protest except his futile efforts to escape, the victim is forced to submit. The skin finally yields; the wound enlarges, and the viscera are removed and devoured by the matron, who empties the carapace, her head buried in the body of her late companion.