X.—THE HOME AND LOVES OF THE SPIDER.CHAPTER X.THE HOME AND LOVES OF THE SPIDER.The spider greatly surpasses all other solitary-living insects. It not only possesses its nest, its ambush, its temporary hunting-station; it has (or, at least, certain species have) a regular house, a house of a very complex description: a vestibule, and a sleeping-chamber, and a mode of egress in the rear; and, finally, a door which is a very triumph of art, for it closes of itself, falling back by its own weight.The door! It is this which is wanting even in the grand cities of the bees and the ants; these industrial republics have never hitherto attained to so lofty a climax.The ants have just reached the point at which most of our African tribes have halted. Every evening they shut up their dwelling-places with immense labour—renewed daily—and by a little, unsubstantial lattice-work, which does not relieve them from the necessity of planting sentinels. It is true, however, that these great, valiant, and well-armed peoples have no fear of invasion, and, like Lacedæmon, need neither walls nor ditches. Their proud intrepidity has set limits to their industry.On the other hand, the poor artisan which lives by itself, and is always exhausted by the incessant toil of spinning and weaving, cannot rely upon its valour. It has need, in certain countries and under certain alarming conditions, of profound ingenuity, and has discovered this little miracle of prudence and combination, which eclipses both the savage and the insect. I do not refer to the great animals, none of which, except the beaver, are very industrious.In the neighbourhood of Lucerne we for the first time saw the house of the spider (theAgelena). It was a kind of sheath, and very well made, with a vestibule facing the south, which expanded outward like a funnel. This exterior portion, forming a little sunny retreat, was the snare and the citadel. The lady of the house stationed herself quite at the bottom of the funnel; but behind this very bottom, at the lower extremity of the case or sheath, was constructed a back apartment, small and very secure, in a white substantial cocoon. In this she trusted so completely, that while we detached the silken cables which moored the entire edifice to the bush, she made no attempt to escape. We had neither destroyed nor damaged, but simply detached the dwelling, and on the day following we found it repaired and moored to the bush on every side. The exposure was no longer so favourable; but, undoubtedly, the workman, in an advanced season of the year (in September, and under the Alps), did not possess the resources for recommencing this grand summer-work.In the Brazilian forests a little spider has its case suspended exactly in the centre of its web; and thither it hurries at the slightest approach of danger, and has no sooner entered, says Swainson, than the door suddenly closes behind it by a spring.But the masterpiece of the genus is seen, especially in Corsica, in the laboriousMygale. Its residence is a kind of well, industriously walled round, with smooth and polished sides, and a double tapestry,—a coarse strong hanging on the earthward front, and a fine satiny hanging in the interior. The orifice of the well is closed by a door. This door is a disc, much larger at the top than at the bottom, and let into a groove in such a manner as to shut hermetically. The disc, which is not more than three lines thick, contains, nevertheless, thirty double woofs, and between the woofs intervene the same number of coats or layers of earth,—so that the entire door is really composed of sixty doors. Here, in truth, is a miracle of patience; but observe, too, the ingenuity,—all these doors of network and earth clamp into one another. The thread-doors at one point are prolonged to the wall, fastening the door to the wall as by a hinge. This door opens outwardly when the spider raises it to go forth, and closes by its own weight. But the enemy might eventually succeed in opening it. This has been anticipated. On the side opposite the hinge some small holes are worked in the door; to these the spider clings, and becomes a living bolt.[O][O]See the works of Audouin and Walckenaëër.What would happen if this astonishing artisan, placed in peculiar and trying circumstances (like the bees under Huber's experiments), were called upon to vary its art and devise a novelty? Could it do so? Has it the intelligence, the resource, and, at need, the power of innovation which the superior insects display under certain conditions? It would be worth while to make the experiment. This, at all events, is certain, that the simpleEpeiras(our garden-spiders) know very well, when deprived of the necessary space for extending their geometrical curtain, how to construct one of irregular design, decreasing in proportion to the restrictions of their area.Experiments, moreover, are difficult. The spider is so nervous, that the fear which makes it an artist can also paralyze and utterly confound it. Its web alone gives it courage. Out of its web, everything makes it tremble. In captivity, having no web, it actually flees before its prey, and has not the resolution to confront a fly.Its miserable condition of passive expectancy fully explains its character. To wait, while acting, running, fighting, is to cheat both time and hunger; but to remain there immovable, to be unable to stir from fear of alarming your prey, to watch it coming nearer and nearer but eventually escaping, and to suffer from an empty stomach! To be a witness of the endless, heedless dances of the fly, which, in the sunbeam, amuses and balances itself for hours without responding to the avid prayers of the tempter which whispers, "Come, little one! Come, my darling!" is a terrible punishment, a series of hopes and disappointments.It pursues its gay measure, and thinks nothing of the sufferer.The fatal inquiry, "Shall I dine?" returns, and lacerates its bowels. Then comes the more ominous reflection: "If I do not dine to-day, no more thread! And far less, then, may I hope to dine to-morrow!"From all this results a suffering, restless, but prodigiously wary and attentive being, which detects not only the slightest contact, but the slightest noise. The spider is only too sensitive. A very little disturbance seems to overthrow its self-control. It apparently faints; you see it suddenly fall from its position, struck down by fear.This sensitiveness, as you will readily believe, is especially displayed in the spider's maternal condition. However miserable and avaricious in its nature, it is tender, liberal, and generoustowards its young. While the birds of prey—the winged hunters which have so many resources—drive away their young at a very early age, look upon them as greedy competitors, and force them by blows of their beaks to dwell afar from the domain which they reserve as their own, the spider is not contented with carrying its eggs in the cocoon, but, in certain species, nourishes them when living and greedy, guards them, bears them on its back; or else she makes them walk, holding them by a thread; if danger threatens, she draws in the thread, they leap upon her, and she saves them. If she cannot do so, she will perish. Some there are which, rather than abandon their offspring, will suffer themselves to be swallowed up in the gulf of the ant-lion. Others, of a slow species, which, when unable to save them, make no effort to escape, but allow themselves to be captured also.Their nests are frequently masterpieces. At Interlaken, in Switzerland, I have admired their long soft tubes, warm in the interior, and well-lined,—externally, disguised with much skill by an artistic pell-mell of small bits of leaf, tiny twigs, and fragments of gray plaster, so as to melt perfectly into the colour of the wall supporting them. But this was nothing in comparison with a work of art which I have here at Fontainebleau.On the 22nd of July 1857, I discovered in an outhouse a very pretty round basket, about an inch across, made of all kinds of materials, and, as it had nothing to fear from rain, without any cover. It was very gracefully suspended to a beam by some elegant silken threads, which I should call little hands, such as are possessed by the climbing plants. Within, brooding on its eggs with a constant incubation, might be seen a spider. It never stirred, except, perhaps, for a moment at night, in quest of food. Never was there any animal so timid. At the gentlest approaches fear made it fly, and almost fall. Once when we disturbed it a little abruptly, it was seized with such an excess of terror that it did not recover for an entire day. It sat for six weeks, and, but for these perturbations, would perhaps have remained much longer.An admirable mother,—an ingenious and delicate artist,—before all things a female,—a female nervous and timid to the highest degree,this strange sensitive creature explained to me perfectly the very opposite sentiments with which the spider inspires us,—those of repulsion and attraction. We start away from it, and yet we draw near to it. It is so coarse, and yet, at the same time, so prodigiously sensitive! It breathes as we do. And the delicate tubercle which secretes its silk, like a milky cloud (as the microscope shows us), is the most feminine organ which exists, perhaps, in nature.Alas, it is alone! Except a few species (mygales) in which the father renders some assistance to the mother, it expects no help. The male, after its moment of love, becomes, indeed, an enemy. Cruel consequences of misery! It perceives that its children are capable of furnishing it with food. But the mother, who is bigger than he, makes a similar reflection,—thinks that the eater is eatable,—and frequently crunches her spouse.These atrocious events never happen, I am confident, in climates where ease and abundance do not deprave their natural disposition. But in our well-peopled countries, with game very rare, and competition of extreme violence, these unfortunates act towards one another like the wretched castaways on the raft of theMedusa.A cruel tyrant, the stomach, dominates over all nature, and vanquishes even love. Passion, in an anxious and restless being like the spider, is very mistrustful. At the height of his devotion, the lean and feeble male dares only approach the majestic lady with a timid reverence and the utmost reserve. He advances, he retires, he watches; he seems to ask himself if he has at all succeeded in subduing the haughty creature. He resorts to the timid methods of a slow magnetism, and especially to an extreme patience. He puts little faith in the first signs, and does not willingly yield his confidence. And, finally, when the adored object shows herself sensible of his sincerity, and grows ardent in her expansion of soul, he does not so wholly trust in her but what he will escape, and fly with all his speed, at some sudden impulse, and under the influence of an indescribable panic.Such is the terrible idyl of the dusky lovers of our ceilings. Amongour garden-spiders less suspicion seems to exist. Nature softens hearts, and rugged industrialism itself grows smoother in rustic life. We see some upon our trees which behave tolerably well to their husbands, and do not too often remember that they are competitors in the chase. They permit them to reside in the same locality, although a little apart, and keeping them at a distance. A light partition separates them. The princess consents that he may live under her roof, and on the ground-floor, while she lives on the first story,—keeping him below and in subjection, so that he may not presume to think himself the king, but only theprince consort, and thehusband of the queen.Have they any sympathies beyond their own race? So some authorities have asserted, and I believe it. They are isolated from us far less than the true insects. They live in our houses, have an interest in knowing us, and seem to observe us. They pay great attention to voices and sounds, and have a marvellous perception of them. If they have not the insect-organs of hearing (which would seem to be the antennæ), it is because they areall antennæ. Their excessive vigilance, and the nervous irradiation which makes itself felt everywhere among them, endow them with the keenest receptivity.Much has been said about the musical spider of Pellisson. Another and less-known anecdote is not less striking. One of those little victims which are trained into virtuosi before they are ripe of age,—Berthome, illustrious in 1800,—owed his astonishing successes to the savage confinement in which he was forced to work. At eight he astounded and stupefied his hearers by his mastery of the violin. In his perpetual solitude he had a comrade whom no one suspected,—a spider. It was lodged at first in a quiet corner, but it gave itself license to advance from the corner to the music-stand, from the music-stand to the child, even climbing upon the mobile arm which held the bow. There, a palpitating and breathless amateur, it paused and listened. It was an audience in itself. The artist needed nothing more to fill him with inspiration and double his energy.Unfortunately the child had a stepmother, who, one day, introducing an amateur into the sanctuary, saw the sensible animal at its post. A blow from her slipper annihilated the auditory. The child fell swooning to the ground, was ill for three months, and died,—heartbroken!Book the ThirdCOMMUNITIES OF INSECTS.I.—THE TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS.CHAPTER I.THE CITY IN THE SHADOWS: THE TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS.M. de Prefontaine (cited by Huber, in his work on "The Ants") relates that, when travelling in Guiana, he saw a party of negroes besieging certain fantastic edifices which he calls ant-hills. They did not venture to attack them except from a distance, and with firearms; having first taken the precaution, moreover, to dig a little trench and fill it with water, to check the progress of the beleaguered army and drown its battalions, if they adventured a sortie.These edifices are not the habitations of Ants, but of Termites,—quite a different species of insect; which are found not only in Guiana, but in Africa, New Holland, and in the prairies of North America.A host of travellers have described them. But the standard and most instructive authority is that of Smeathman, which now lies before us, enriched with excellent plates. The drawings are taken from the termite-hills of Africa.Figure to yourself a mound of earth, about twelve feet high (some have been discovered measuring twenty), which, from a distance, might easily be mistaken for a negro's hut. Approach it, and you will at once detect that it is the product of a higher art. Its curious form is that of a pointed dome; or, if you like, of an obtuse and preponderating obelisk. For support, the dome or obelisk has four, five, or six cupolas from five to six feet high; and against these are propped up below some small bell-like structures, nearly two feet in elevation. The whole might well be taken for a kind of Oriental cathedral, the principal spire of which had a double cincture of minarets, decreasing in height; the said whole being of extreme solidity, and composed of a compact clay, which, when burnt, makes the best bricks. Not only may several men stand upon it without injury, but even the wild bull's station themselves on its summit as sentinels to watch, through the high grasses of the plain, that the lion or panther does not surprise the herd.Nevertheless, this dome is hollow, and the inferior platform which supports it is itself supported by a semi-hollow construction formed by the junction of four arches (two to three feet in span),—arches of a very substantial design, being pointed, ogival, and in a kind of Gothic style. Lower still extends a number of passages or corridors, plastered spaces which one might call saloons, and finally, convenient, spacious, and healthy lodgings, capable of receiving a large population; in brief, quite a subterranean city.A broad spiral passage winds and rises gradually in the thickness of the edifice, which has no opening, no door, no window; the vomitories are disguised and at a distance, terminating afar in the plain.It is the most considerable and important work which displays the genius of insects; a labour of infinite patience and of daring art. Wemust not forget that these walls, which time has hardened, were very friable at first, and always crumbling. To raise this Titanic edifice to such a height, a continuity of effort was absolutely requisite, and a succession of provisional constructions, demolished one after the other when they had served their purpose. The masons commenced with the exterior pyramids, a foot and a foot and a half in height; then with those of the second rank. But the latter being solid and indurated, they intrepidly undermined their base to make room for the passages, the windows, and the spiral staircase. The same operation was carried out beneath the dome, which was excavated with great labour, and in such a manner that the great hollow vault, in conjunction with its lower platform, rested on the narrow vaults of the four arches forming the centre and foundation of the edifice.Observe that this dome is self-sustaining, and that its substructions, strictly speaking, would amply suffice for its support; the lateral pyramids being only its not indispensable auxiliaries. Here, then, we find the principle of a true, honest, and courageous art, which, relying on itself and its calculations, requires no assistance from external supports, and needs neither props nor buttresses. It is exactly the system of Brunelleschi.Who has carried the art to such a climax? We must own that it is the supreme of usefulness. The sharpened dome, the belfries or needles, are admirably arranged so as to resist the terrible rain-storms of the tropics. The dome keeps off the water, and assists it to flow away rapidly. If it cracked, the platform on which it leans would throw the water, as from a roof, on to the exteriorenceinte, which would carry it to the ground. Hollow like a kiln, it quickly gets warmed, and absorbs the heat; duly communicating it to the subterranean passages to hatch the eggs, and promote the comfort of a race which, being wholly naked, prefers an elevated temperature.It is a masterpiece of art, precisely because it is a masterpiece of utility. The beautiful and the useful admirably harmonize. Now one would wish to know whoarethese astonishing artists: we hardly dare to confess that they are the objects of our entire contempt.Various names have been bestowed upon them; among others, that of termites: and again, that of wood-ants,—a designation not very accurate, for the ants are their enemies, and their body, being exceedingly soft, is exactly the opposite of the dry hard body of the ant.They have been also called wood-lice; and they seem, in truth, a soft and feeble kind of vermin, which are crushed without resistance. Magnificent jest of God, who loves to exalt his humblest creatures! The Memphis, the Babylon, the true Capitol of the insects, is built—by whom? By lice! Though their luxury of jaws, and their four stages of teeth, make them admirable rodents, nevertheless, if we except theirélite, the soldiers, they have no important weapons. Their teeth, made to gnaw, are powerless in combat. The destiny of the termites is plain; spite of the formidable names which have been given to their species (bellicosus,mordax,atrox), they are simplyworkers.Every other insect is stronger than they are; or at least harder, better protected, and more completely armed. All, especially the ants, hunt them, and devour them by myriads. Birds greedily pursue them; the poultry-yards absorb them in frightful quantities. All (even man, who cooks them) find them of an agreeable taste; and the negro can never be satiated with them.They work without seeing their work. They have no eyes, at least none which are visible. Very probably, the darkness in which they live destroys their ocular organs, as is the case with a species of duck found in the subterranean lakes of Carinthia. The rare species of termites which venture forth into the daylight have very conspicuous and perfectly formed eyes.The darkness and the persecution to which they are exposed under the light, seem to have developed their singular industry. Against that world of day which shows them so bitter a hostility, they have built, as they have been able, this little world of the shadows, in which they exercise their arts. They issue forth only in search of food, and the gum and other substances of which they make their magazines.Their attachment is extreme for these cities of darkness. They defend them obstinately. The first blow that is given each resists in his own fashion; the workmen plastering the interior with a kind ofmortar which closes up the holes, the soldiers attacking the assailants and drawing blood with their sharp pincers, clinging to the wound, and suffering themselves to be crushed rather than let go. A naked man (like the negro) shrinks under these bites, grows discouraged, and is conquered.If you still persist, if you penetrate, you admire the palace, its circuits, its corridors, its aërial bridges, the halls or saloons where the population lodge, the nurseries for the eggs, the caves, cellars, or magazines. But, above all, search to the centre. There lurks the mystery of this little world; there is its palladium, its idol, incessantly surrounded by the cares of an enthusiastic crowd. A strange and shocking object, which is not the less obeyed, and visibly adored!It is the queen, or common mother, frightfully fecund, from whose body issues an uninterrupted flood of about sixty eggs per minute, or eighty thousand eggs per day!You can conceive of nothing more fantastic. These strange creatures, which we compare to vermin, have nevertheless their moment of supreme poesy, their hour of love; for a moment their wings uplift them, and almost immediately they sink. The couples thus bereft, having neither refuge nor strength, and no means of resistance, are a prey for all the insects,—a manna upon which they straightway throw themselves. The working termites, which have neither love nor wings, endeavour to save a couple of the victims, welcome them,—weak, and fallen, and wretched as they are,—and make them monarchs.They remove them to the centre of the city, and establish them in the saloon on which all the apartments and corridors abut. There they are revived, recruited, and nourished day and night; and the female gradually assumes an enormous size, until in body and stomach she is two thousand times larger than her natural condition,—though, by a hideous contrast, the head does not increase. For the rest, immovable, and therefore captive, the doors through which she entered have become infinitely too narrow to admit of the egress of such a monster. Accordingly, there she will remain, pouring out, until she splits asunder, that torrent of living matter which the termites day and night collect, and which, to-morrow, will be the People.This soft and whitish-looking creature, a stomach rather than a being, is at least of the size of the human thumb: a traveller pretends to have seen one as large as a crab.The bigger she is, the more fertile, the more inexhaustible, this terrible mother of lice seems the more enthusiastically worshipped by her fanatical vermin. She appears to be their ideal, their poetry, their ecstasy. If you carry them off, with a fragment, a ruin of the city, you may see them, under a glass shade, instantly set to work to build an arch for the protection of the mother's venerated head, to reconstruct her royal hall, which will become, if the materials be sufficient, the centre and basis of the resuscitated community.I am not astonished, let me add, at the extravagant love which they show towards this instrument of fecundity. If every other race did not jointly labour to destroy them, this truly prodigious mother would make them masters of the world,—nay, what do I say?—its only inhabitants. The fish alone would survive; but the insect world would perish. It suffices to remember that the queen-bee takes a year to accomplish what the termite mother accomplishes in a day. Through her means they would swallow up Everybody; but they are feeble and savoury, and it is Everybody which swallows up them.When the species of termites which live and dwell in the woods unfortunately approach near our habitations, there is no means of arresting their ravages. They work with a truly incredible vigour and rapidity. They have been known in one night to eat their way through the leg of a table, then through the thickness of the table itself, descending through the leg on the opposite side.The reader can easily imagine the effect produced by such toil as this on the joists and framework of a house. The worst of it is, that a long time may elapse before their ravages are detected. We continue to rely upon supports which suddenly, one fine morning, crumble away; we sleep peacefully under roofs which to-morrow will cease to exist.The town of Valencia, in New Grenada, undermined by the subterranean galleries these insects have excavated in the earth, is now literally suspended upon their dangerous catacombs.We have ourselves seen, at Rochelle, the formidable beginnings ofthe ravages they executed in the timber-work of a quarter of the town where they were introduced by foreign ships. Whole buildings are found eaten up, though apparently sound,—all the wood hollowed and tunnelled, even to the banisters of the staircase: do not rest upon them, or they will yield and give way under your hand. These terrible nibblers seem willing, however, to confine themselves to one district of the town, and not to invade the remainder. Otherwise, this historical city, important still through its marine and its commerce, would be reduced to the condition of Herculaneum and Pompeii.II.—INSECTS AT WORK.CHAPTER II.THE ANTS:—THEIR DOMESTIC ECONOMY—THEIR NUPTIALS.The ants enjoy a superiority over all other insects, inasmuch as they are less specialized by their mode of life, their nourishment, and the instruments of their industry. Generally, they adapt themselves to all conditions, and work in all climates; nor in all Nature do more energetic agents in purification and cleansing exist. They are, so to say, the factotums of Nature.The termites, at least the majority of them, work in the darkness, under the earth; the ants both above and below.Like the termites, they build, at least in tropical countries, the most remarkable edifices,—domes under which their chrysalides enjoythe warmth of the sun without being injured by its scorching rays. But these are not fortresses; the ants have no need of them; for in the tropical regions they are the sovereigns and tyrants of all other beings. The exterminatingcarabi, the invadingnecrophori, which play among us, as insects, therôleof the eagle and the vulture, scarcely venture to make their appearance in the burning latitudes where the ants hold sway. Everything which lies on the earth's surface they immediately devour. Lund, in hisMémoire sur les Fourmis, says that he had scarcely time to pick up a bird which he had seen drop. The ants were already on the spot, and had seized upon it. The sanitary police is performed by them with an implacable and energetic exactitude.The great ants of the South are much more savage than our European species; and feeling themselves sovereigns and mistresses, feared by all, dreading none, they march forward imperturbably, without suffering any obstacle to divert their course. If a house stand in their way, they enter, and all that is alive within it—even the enormous, venomous, and formidable spiders, ay, and small mammiferous animals also—is devoured. Men give place to them. And if you cannot quit your house, you have reason to fear their invasion. Once, at Barbadoes, a long column was seen defiling for several days in formidable numbers. All the earth was black with them, and the torrent poured forward straight in the direction of the houses. They were crushed by hundreds, without heeding their losses; myriads were destroyed, but they continued to advance. No wall, no ditch, was of any service; water even could not arrest their progress: for it is known that they construct living bridges, by fastening on to one another in clusters and garlands. Fortunately, the plan was adopted of sowing the ground in advance of them with numerous tiny volcanoes, small heaps of gunpowder, which were fired at intervals beneath them, and exploding, swept away whole files, and dispersed the rest,—covering them with fire and smoke, and blinding them with dust. This scheme proved successful. At least, the ants turned aside a little, and moved in a different direction.Linnæus calls the termites the scourge of the two Indies; and wemight equally well bestow this appellation on the ants, if we considered only the havoc they commit among the labours and cultivation of man. In a few hours they strip a large orangery, denuding it of every leaf. In a single night they devastate a field of cotton, manioc, or sugar-cane. Behold their crimes! Their virtues? they destroy to a still greater extent all things that might prove hurtful to man, and but for them certain countries would be uninhabitable.As for our European species, I cannot see that they do the slightest harm, either to man, or to the plants he cultivates. Far from it, they deliver him from an infinity of little insects. I have frequently seen long files of them, with each carrying in his mouth a very small grub as a contribution to the food stores of the republic. Such a picture should ensure them the benedictions of every honourable agriculturist.The mason-ants, which work in and entirely under the earth, are difficult to observe. But the "carpenters" may be easily followed, at least in the upper part of their constructions. The cupola of their edifice being subject to dilapidation, they are constantly under a necessity of repairing and re-excavating it. With the small amount of soil which they make use of, they mix the leaves and spines of the fir, and the catkins of the pine. If they meet with a bent; twisted, and knotty twig, it is a treasure; they employ it as an arcade, or, better still, as an ogive; for the pointed arch is the most solid. The numerous avenues which lead to the surface spread out in radii like a fan; they start from a concentric point, and extend to the circumference. The mass of the edifice is divided into low but spacious apartments. The largest is in the centre and under the dome; it is also the most elevated, and destined, apparently, for public communications. There, at all hours, you will find a knot of busy citizens, who, by the rapid contact of their antennæ (a kind of electric telegraph) seem to relate to one another the news, and exchange opinions or mutual directions. It is a kind of forum.There is nothing more curious than to observe the various occupations and movements of this great people. While some, as purveyors, go in search of grubs, hunt insects, or collect materials, others, sedentaryin their habits, attend entirely to domestic cares and the education of the young. An immense and an incessant occupation, if we may judge from the continual movement of the nurses round the cradles. Let but a raindrop fall, or a single sunbeam penetrate, and a general stir takes place, a general removal of all the children of the colony, and this with an ardour which never wearies. You may see them tenderly taking up the big children—which weigh as much as themselves—and transferring them from stage to stage, to rest them in a convenient position.This scale of heat, extending over forty degrees, what is it but a thermometer?But more remains. The cares of alimentation, of what one might call "suckling," are much more complicated than among the bees. The eggs must receive a nourishing humidity from the mouth of the nurses. The larvæ take the beakful. And the young one which has worn through its husk and become a nymph, would not have strength enough to emerge from it if the attentive guardians were not at hand to open the husk, release the little tenant, and initiate it into the light. In the artificial ant-hills, which we have procured for the sake of closer examination, we have even succeeded in observing a circumstance which Huber regrets he had been unable to discover.Some light movements which the infant communicates to its swaddling-clothes give warning that its hour is come. We took great pleasure in watching the nurses seated upon their hind limbs like little motionless, upright fairies, plainly discerning under the silent veil the first yearning for liberty.As in every superior race, the young comes into the world weak, and frail, and incapable of effort. Its first steps are so infirm that at every movement it falls upon its knees. It requires, as it were, to be kept in leading-strings. Its great vitality is only shown by an incessant demand for food. Therefore, when the heat is great, and numerous swaddling-husks must be opened daily, the new-born are all lodged in the same part of the city.NEST OF RUSSET ANTS.One day, however, I saw a young ant thrust forth its head, still somewhat pale, at a gate of the city, then step across the threshold, and march along the summit of the ant-hill. The escapade, however, was not long permitted. A nurse encountering the fugitive, seized it by the top of its head, and conducted it gently towards a neighbouring entrance.The child resisted; it suffered itself to be dragged along, and on the way coming in contact with a small piece of wood, profited by it to stiffen itself, and exhaust its conductor's strength. The latter, always keeping its temper, let go for a moment, executed a flank movement, and then returned to the charge, until its nursling, tired out, was compelled to yield obedience.As soon as the young are strong enough, they have to be brought acquainted with the interior labyrinth of the city, the suburbs, the avenues which lead to the outer world, and the neighbouring roads. Then they are trained to hunt, are accustomed to provide for themselves, to live hap-hazard and upon little or any kind of food. Temperance is the basis of the whole commonwealth.The ant, not being fastidious, but accepting all descriptions of food, is from this very cause the less anxious, restless, and selfish. It is very wrong to call it amiser. Far from being so, it seems solely intent upon multiplying in its city the number of its co-partners. In its generous maternal care of those whom it has not begotten, in its solicitude for those little ones of yesterday which to-day become young citizens, originates a feeling quite novel and very rare among insects,—that of fraternity. (See the works of Latreille and Huber.)The obscurest and most curious point of their education is, undoubtedly, the communication of language, which reminds the observer of the forms of freemasonry. It enables them to transmit really complicated directions to their legions, and to change in a moment the march of a whole column, the action of an entire populace.This language principally consists in the touch of the antennæ, or in a light collision of the mandibles. They urge (or perhaps persuade) by blows of the head against the thorax. Finally, they sometimes carry off the auditor, who makes no resistance, and transport him to some designated place or object. In this case, which undoubtedly is both difficult to believe and explain, the convinced auditor unites withthe other, and both together carry off other witnesses, which in their turn perform upon others—the number continually increasing—the same operation. Our parliamentary phrases, "to carry away the crowd," "to transport the hearer," are by no means mere metaphors among the ants!To this lively gesticulation they join many other scarcely explicable movements,—such as cavalcades, in which they march mounted one upon another, exchanging gay defiances and light blows upon the cheeks. Then they rear themselves upright, and contend by couples, seizing upon a leg, a mandible, or an antenna. Naturalists have spoken of these as their pastimes, but I know not what to think. Among so busy, and obviously serious a family, this gymnastic exercise has perhaps a hygienic object which we do not understand.We had so well managed our prisoners that they had become habituated to their new domicile, and toiled under our eyes as they would have done in their own city. They rebuilt for themselves a small town in miniature, with gates whose number they carefully augmented, especially on very hot days, for the purpose of giving air to their little ones, whom they took care to place near the openings.In the evening they conscientiously proceeded, according to their invariable custom, to shut up the gates, as if always afraid of some nocturnal invasion of idle vagabonds. A spectacle of deep interest, which we frequently took occasion to enjoy in front of the great swarming ant-hills.Nor could there be a more varied picture; on all sides, and at great distances, you might see them coming in long files, each bearing some little article,—one a long straw, another a pretty pine nut-cup, or (according to the country) a black needle-like leaf of the fir-tree. These, like little woodcutters returning at close of day, brought back imperceptible bundles of twigs; others, which seemed empty-handed, were but the more heavily loaded, having just taken prisoners some wood-lice, which they carried home for the evening meal of the little ones.At the approaches of the City, the points where the ascent commenced, it was a pleasure to see the vigour, the zeal, and the ardourwith which they dragged up such heavy materials. If one let go, exhausted, two or three others succeeded. And the joist or beam, full of animation, and apparently alive, gradually ascended. Skill and foresight supplied the want of strength. If checked at any particular point, they turned and advanced in a somewhat different direction, ascending a little higher than was necessary; then they let down the weight exactly over the opening which they wished to conceal; a quick light movement made the mass pirouette, and it fell into its place.Numerous problems in statics and mechanics were solved by a felicitous audacity and with a great economy of effort. By degrees all was secured. The vast dome, embracing with a soft and delicate curve a great nation of workers in its lawful repose, offered nothing to the sight, neither door nor window, and appeared to be a simple heap of tiny fragments of fir. Do I mean that all slumbered in full confidence? It would be wrong to think so. A few sentinels wandered to and fro; at the lightest touch of a switch, or the rustle of a leaf, the guards would issue forth, perambulate the exterior of their city, and when reassured would re-enter, but, undoubtedly, to continue their watch, and remain upon duty.The most surprising scene at which any one can be present is a marriage of ants.Of all follies, as everybody knows, the worst are those of the wise. The honourable, economical, and respectable republic accordingly presents (one single day yearly, it is true) a prodigious spectacle—of love?of madness?—we do not know, but certainly of vertigo, and to speak plainly, of terror. M. Huber saw in it the appearance of a national holiday. What a holiday! And what a scene of intoxication! But no; nothing human can give an idea of this boiling effervescence.I watched it on one occasion, between six and seven o'clock in the evening. The day had been one of heavy showers and warm gleams of light. The horizon was lowering, and yet the air calm. It was Nature's pause before resuming her storms of rain.Upon a low sloping roof I saw descend quite a deluge of winged insects, which seemed stunned, confused, delirious. To describe their agitation, their disorderly movements, their somersaults and shocks to arrive more quickly at the goal, would be impossible. Many rested, and loved. The greater number whirled round and round without stopping. All were so eager to live, that their very eagerness proved an obstacle. This feverish desire produced a feeling of alarm.A terrible idyllic poem!It was impossible to make out what they wished. Were they enjoying a festival of love? Were they devouring one another? Right through this distraught multitude offiancéswho had lost their senses passed other and wingless ants, which threw themselves without mercy on the most embarrassed individuals, bit them, and treated them so severely, that we thought we could see them crunching the lovers. But no! They wanted nothing more than to force them to obey, and to recall them to their senses. Their vivid pantomime was the counsel of prudence translated into action. The wingless ants were the wise and irreproachable nurses, who, having no children, bring up those of the others, and bear all the burden of the toil and management of the city.These virgins maintained a surveillance over the amorous and slothful, and rigidly inspected the marriage-festival as a public act, which, every year, renews the nation. Their natural fear was lest the winged fools should be wooed and won elsewhere, and create other tribes, without any thought of the parent community.Numbers of the winged ones submitted, and allowed themselves tobe carried below towards their country and virtue. But many tore themselves away, and flew afar, obedient only to the dictates of love and caprice.It was an astonishing vision, a fantastic dream, which can never be forgotten.In the morning nothing remained as a memorial of the excesses of the preceding evening, except the fragments of some severed wings, in which no one could have divined the trace of a uniquesoirée d'amour.
X.—THE HOME AND LOVES OF THE SPIDER.
X.—THE HOME AND LOVES OF THE SPIDER.
CHAPTER X.THE HOME AND LOVES OF THE SPIDER.The spider greatly surpasses all other solitary-living insects. It not only possesses its nest, its ambush, its temporary hunting-station; it has (or, at least, certain species have) a regular house, a house of a very complex description: a vestibule, and a sleeping-chamber, and a mode of egress in the rear; and, finally, a door which is a very triumph of art, for it closes of itself, falling back by its own weight.The door! It is this which is wanting even in the grand cities of the bees and the ants; these industrial republics have never hitherto attained to so lofty a climax.
CHAPTER X.
THE HOME AND LOVES OF THE SPIDER.
The spider greatly surpasses all other solitary-living insects. It not only possesses its nest, its ambush, its temporary hunting-station; it has (or, at least, certain species have) a regular house, a house of a very complex description: a vestibule, and a sleeping-chamber, and a mode of egress in the rear; and, finally, a door which is a very triumph of art, for it closes of itself, falling back by its own weight.
The door! It is this which is wanting even in the grand cities of the bees and the ants; these industrial republics have never hitherto attained to so lofty a climax.
The ants have just reached the point at which most of our African tribes have halted. Every evening they shut up their dwelling-places with immense labour—renewed daily—and by a little, unsubstantial lattice-work, which does not relieve them from the necessity of planting sentinels. It is true, however, that these great, valiant, and well-armed peoples have no fear of invasion, and, like Lacedæmon, need neither walls nor ditches. Their proud intrepidity has set limits to their industry.
On the other hand, the poor artisan which lives by itself, and is always exhausted by the incessant toil of spinning and weaving, cannot rely upon its valour. It has need, in certain countries and under certain alarming conditions, of profound ingenuity, and has discovered this little miracle of prudence and combination, which eclipses both the savage and the insect. I do not refer to the great animals, none of which, except the beaver, are very industrious.
In the neighbourhood of Lucerne we for the first time saw the house of the spider (theAgelena). It was a kind of sheath, and very well made, with a vestibule facing the south, which expanded outward like a funnel. This exterior portion, forming a little sunny retreat, was the snare and the citadel. The lady of the house stationed herself quite at the bottom of the funnel; but behind this very bottom, at the lower extremity of the case or sheath, was constructed a back apartment, small and very secure, in a white substantial cocoon. In this she trusted so completely, that while we detached the silken cables which moored the entire edifice to the bush, she made no attempt to escape. We had neither destroyed nor damaged, but simply detached the dwelling, and on the day following we found it repaired and moored to the bush on every side. The exposure was no longer so favourable; but, undoubtedly, the workman, in an advanced season of the year (in September, and under the Alps), did not possess the resources for recommencing this grand summer-work.
In the Brazilian forests a little spider has its case suspended exactly in the centre of its web; and thither it hurries at the slightest approach of danger, and has no sooner entered, says Swainson, than the door suddenly closes behind it by a spring.
But the masterpiece of the genus is seen, especially in Corsica, in the laboriousMygale. Its residence is a kind of well, industriously walled round, with smooth and polished sides, and a double tapestry,—a coarse strong hanging on the earthward front, and a fine satiny hanging in the interior. The orifice of the well is closed by a door. This door is a disc, much larger at the top than at the bottom, and let into a groove in such a manner as to shut hermetically. The disc, which is not more than three lines thick, contains, nevertheless, thirty double woofs, and between the woofs intervene the same number of coats or layers of earth,—so that the entire door is really composed of sixty doors. Here, in truth, is a miracle of patience; but observe, too, the ingenuity,—all these doors of network and earth clamp into one another. The thread-doors at one point are prolonged to the wall, fastening the door to the wall as by a hinge. This door opens outwardly when the spider raises it to go forth, and closes by its own weight. But the enemy might eventually succeed in opening it. This has been anticipated. On the side opposite the hinge some small holes are worked in the door; to these the spider clings, and becomes a living bolt.[O]
[O]See the works of Audouin and Walckenaëër.
[O]See the works of Audouin and Walckenaëër.
What would happen if this astonishing artisan, placed in peculiar and trying circumstances (like the bees under Huber's experiments), were called upon to vary its art and devise a novelty? Could it do so? Has it the intelligence, the resource, and, at need, the power of innovation which the superior insects display under certain conditions? It would be worth while to make the experiment. This, at all events, is certain, that the simpleEpeiras(our garden-spiders) know very well, when deprived of the necessary space for extending their geometrical curtain, how to construct one of irregular design, decreasing in proportion to the restrictions of their area.
Experiments, moreover, are difficult. The spider is so nervous, that the fear which makes it an artist can also paralyze and utterly confound it. Its web alone gives it courage. Out of its web, everything makes it tremble. In captivity, having no web, it actually flees before its prey, and has not the resolution to confront a fly.
Its miserable condition of passive expectancy fully explains its character. To wait, while acting, running, fighting, is to cheat both time and hunger; but to remain there immovable, to be unable to stir from fear of alarming your prey, to watch it coming nearer and nearer but eventually escaping, and to suffer from an empty stomach! To be a witness of the endless, heedless dances of the fly, which, in the sunbeam, amuses and balances itself for hours without responding to the avid prayers of the tempter which whispers, "Come, little one! Come, my darling!" is a terrible punishment, a series of hopes and disappointments.
It pursues its gay measure, and thinks nothing of the sufferer.
The fatal inquiry, "Shall I dine?" returns, and lacerates its bowels. Then comes the more ominous reflection: "If I do not dine to-day, no more thread! And far less, then, may I hope to dine to-morrow!"
From all this results a suffering, restless, but prodigiously wary and attentive being, which detects not only the slightest contact, but the slightest noise. The spider is only too sensitive. A very little disturbance seems to overthrow its self-control. It apparently faints; you see it suddenly fall from its position, struck down by fear.
This sensitiveness, as you will readily believe, is especially displayed in the spider's maternal condition. However miserable and avaricious in its nature, it is tender, liberal, and generoustowards its young. While the birds of prey—the winged hunters which have so many resources—drive away their young at a very early age, look upon them as greedy competitors, and force them by blows of their beaks to dwell afar from the domain which they reserve as their own, the spider is not contented with carrying its eggs in the cocoon, but, in certain species, nourishes them when living and greedy, guards them, bears them on its back; or else she makes them walk, holding them by a thread; if danger threatens, she draws in the thread, they leap upon her, and she saves them. If she cannot do so, she will perish. Some there are which, rather than abandon their offspring, will suffer themselves to be swallowed up in the gulf of the ant-lion. Others, of a slow species, which, when unable to save them, make no effort to escape, but allow themselves to be captured also.
Their nests are frequently masterpieces. At Interlaken, in Switzerland, I have admired their long soft tubes, warm in the interior, and well-lined,—externally, disguised with much skill by an artistic pell-mell of small bits of leaf, tiny twigs, and fragments of gray plaster, so as to melt perfectly into the colour of the wall supporting them. But this was nothing in comparison with a work of art which I have here at Fontainebleau.
On the 22nd of July 1857, I discovered in an outhouse a very pretty round basket, about an inch across, made of all kinds of materials, and, as it had nothing to fear from rain, without any cover. It was very gracefully suspended to a beam by some elegant silken threads, which I should call little hands, such as are possessed by the climbing plants. Within, brooding on its eggs with a constant incubation, might be seen a spider. It never stirred, except, perhaps, for a moment at night, in quest of food. Never was there any animal so timid. At the gentlest approaches fear made it fly, and almost fall. Once when we disturbed it a little abruptly, it was seized with such an excess of terror that it did not recover for an entire day. It sat for six weeks, and, but for these perturbations, would perhaps have remained much longer.
An admirable mother,—an ingenious and delicate artist,—before all things a female,—a female nervous and timid to the highest degree,this strange sensitive creature explained to me perfectly the very opposite sentiments with which the spider inspires us,—those of repulsion and attraction. We start away from it, and yet we draw near to it. It is so coarse, and yet, at the same time, so prodigiously sensitive! It breathes as we do. And the delicate tubercle which secretes its silk, like a milky cloud (as the microscope shows us), is the most feminine organ which exists, perhaps, in nature.
Alas, it is alone! Except a few species (mygales) in which the father renders some assistance to the mother, it expects no help. The male, after its moment of love, becomes, indeed, an enemy. Cruel consequences of misery! It perceives that its children are capable of furnishing it with food. But the mother, who is bigger than he, makes a similar reflection,—thinks that the eater is eatable,—and frequently crunches her spouse.
These atrocious events never happen, I am confident, in climates where ease and abundance do not deprave their natural disposition. But in our well-peopled countries, with game very rare, and competition of extreme violence, these unfortunates act towards one another like the wretched castaways on the raft of theMedusa.
A cruel tyrant, the stomach, dominates over all nature, and vanquishes even love. Passion, in an anxious and restless being like the spider, is very mistrustful. At the height of his devotion, the lean and feeble male dares only approach the majestic lady with a timid reverence and the utmost reserve. He advances, he retires, he watches; he seems to ask himself if he has at all succeeded in subduing the haughty creature. He resorts to the timid methods of a slow magnetism, and especially to an extreme patience. He puts little faith in the first signs, and does not willingly yield his confidence. And, finally, when the adored object shows herself sensible of his sincerity, and grows ardent in her expansion of soul, he does not so wholly trust in her but what he will escape, and fly with all his speed, at some sudden impulse, and under the influence of an indescribable panic.
Such is the terrible idyl of the dusky lovers of our ceilings. Amongour garden-spiders less suspicion seems to exist. Nature softens hearts, and rugged industrialism itself grows smoother in rustic life. We see some upon our trees which behave tolerably well to their husbands, and do not too often remember that they are competitors in the chase. They permit them to reside in the same locality, although a little apart, and keeping them at a distance. A light partition separates them. The princess consents that he may live under her roof, and on the ground-floor, while she lives on the first story,—keeping him below and in subjection, so that he may not presume to think himself the king, but only theprince consort, and thehusband of the queen.
Have they any sympathies beyond their own race? So some authorities have asserted, and I believe it. They are isolated from us far less than the true insects. They live in our houses, have an interest in knowing us, and seem to observe us. They pay great attention to voices and sounds, and have a marvellous perception of them. If they have not the insect-organs of hearing (which would seem to be the antennæ), it is because they areall antennæ. Their excessive vigilance, and the nervous irradiation which makes itself felt everywhere among them, endow them with the keenest receptivity.
Much has been said about the musical spider of Pellisson. Another and less-known anecdote is not less striking. One of those little victims which are trained into virtuosi before they are ripe of age,—Berthome, illustrious in 1800,—owed his astonishing successes to the savage confinement in which he was forced to work. At eight he astounded and stupefied his hearers by his mastery of the violin. In his perpetual solitude he had a comrade whom no one suspected,—a spider. It was lodged at first in a quiet corner, but it gave itself license to advance from the corner to the music-stand, from the music-stand to the child, even climbing upon the mobile arm which held the bow. There, a palpitating and breathless amateur, it paused and listened. It was an audience in itself. The artist needed nothing more to fill him with inspiration and double his energy.
Unfortunately the child had a stepmother, who, one day, introducing an amateur into the sanctuary, saw the sensible animal at its post. A blow from her slipper annihilated the auditory. The child fell swooning to the ground, was ill for three months, and died,—heartbroken!
Book the Third
COMMUNITIES OF INSECTS.
I.—THE TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS.
I.—THE TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS.
CHAPTER I.THE CITY IN THE SHADOWS: THE TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS.M. de Prefontaine (cited by Huber, in his work on "The Ants") relates that, when travelling in Guiana, he saw a party of negroes besieging certain fantastic edifices which he calls ant-hills. They did not venture to attack them except from a distance, and with firearms; having first taken the precaution, moreover, to dig a little trench and fill it with water, to check the progress of the beleaguered army and drown its battalions, if they adventured a sortie.These edifices are not the habitations of Ants, but of Termites,—quite a different species of insect; which are found not only in Guiana, but in Africa, New Holland, and in the prairies of North America.A host of travellers have described them. But the standard and most instructive authority is that of Smeathman, which now lies before us, enriched with excellent plates. The drawings are taken from the termite-hills of Africa.
CHAPTER I.
THE CITY IN THE SHADOWS: THE TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS.
M. de Prefontaine (cited by Huber, in his work on "The Ants") relates that, when travelling in Guiana, he saw a party of negroes besieging certain fantastic edifices which he calls ant-hills. They did not venture to attack them except from a distance, and with firearms; having first taken the precaution, moreover, to dig a little trench and fill it with water, to check the progress of the beleaguered army and drown its battalions, if they adventured a sortie.
These edifices are not the habitations of Ants, but of Termites,—quite a different species of insect; which are found not only in Guiana, but in Africa, New Holland, and in the prairies of North America.
A host of travellers have described them. But the standard and most instructive authority is that of Smeathman, which now lies before us, enriched with excellent plates. The drawings are taken from the termite-hills of Africa.
Figure to yourself a mound of earth, about twelve feet high (some have been discovered measuring twenty), which, from a distance, might easily be mistaken for a negro's hut. Approach it, and you will at once detect that it is the product of a higher art. Its curious form is that of a pointed dome; or, if you like, of an obtuse and preponderating obelisk. For support, the dome or obelisk has four, five, or six cupolas from five to six feet high; and against these are propped up below some small bell-like structures, nearly two feet in elevation. The whole might well be taken for a kind of Oriental cathedral, the principal spire of which had a double cincture of minarets, decreasing in height; the said whole being of extreme solidity, and composed of a compact clay, which, when burnt, makes the best bricks. Not only may several men stand upon it without injury, but even the wild bull's station themselves on its summit as sentinels to watch, through the high grasses of the plain, that the lion or panther does not surprise the herd.
Nevertheless, this dome is hollow, and the inferior platform which supports it is itself supported by a semi-hollow construction formed by the junction of four arches (two to three feet in span),—arches of a very substantial design, being pointed, ogival, and in a kind of Gothic style. Lower still extends a number of passages or corridors, plastered spaces which one might call saloons, and finally, convenient, spacious, and healthy lodgings, capable of receiving a large population; in brief, quite a subterranean city.
A broad spiral passage winds and rises gradually in the thickness of the edifice, which has no opening, no door, no window; the vomitories are disguised and at a distance, terminating afar in the plain.
It is the most considerable and important work which displays the genius of insects; a labour of infinite patience and of daring art. Wemust not forget that these walls, which time has hardened, were very friable at first, and always crumbling. To raise this Titanic edifice to such a height, a continuity of effort was absolutely requisite, and a succession of provisional constructions, demolished one after the other when they had served their purpose. The masons commenced with the exterior pyramids, a foot and a foot and a half in height; then with those of the second rank. But the latter being solid and indurated, they intrepidly undermined their base to make room for the passages, the windows, and the spiral staircase. The same operation was carried out beneath the dome, which was excavated with great labour, and in such a manner that the great hollow vault, in conjunction with its lower platform, rested on the narrow vaults of the four arches forming the centre and foundation of the edifice.
Observe that this dome is self-sustaining, and that its substructions, strictly speaking, would amply suffice for its support; the lateral pyramids being only its not indispensable auxiliaries. Here, then, we find the principle of a true, honest, and courageous art, which, relying on itself and its calculations, requires no assistance from external supports, and needs neither props nor buttresses. It is exactly the system of Brunelleschi.
Who has carried the art to such a climax? We must own that it is the supreme of usefulness. The sharpened dome, the belfries or needles, are admirably arranged so as to resist the terrible rain-storms of the tropics. The dome keeps off the water, and assists it to flow away rapidly. If it cracked, the platform on which it leans would throw the water, as from a roof, on to the exteriorenceinte, which would carry it to the ground. Hollow like a kiln, it quickly gets warmed, and absorbs the heat; duly communicating it to the subterranean passages to hatch the eggs, and promote the comfort of a race which, being wholly naked, prefers an elevated temperature.
It is a masterpiece of art, precisely because it is a masterpiece of utility. The beautiful and the useful admirably harmonize. Now one would wish to know whoarethese astonishing artists: we hardly dare to confess that they are the objects of our entire contempt.
Various names have been bestowed upon them; among others, that of termites: and again, that of wood-ants,—a designation not very accurate, for the ants are their enemies, and their body, being exceedingly soft, is exactly the opposite of the dry hard body of the ant.
They have been also called wood-lice; and they seem, in truth, a soft and feeble kind of vermin, which are crushed without resistance. Magnificent jest of God, who loves to exalt his humblest creatures! The Memphis, the Babylon, the true Capitol of the insects, is built—by whom? By lice! Though their luxury of jaws, and their four stages of teeth, make them admirable rodents, nevertheless, if we except theirélite, the soldiers, they have no important weapons. Their teeth, made to gnaw, are powerless in combat. The destiny of the termites is plain; spite of the formidable names which have been given to their species (bellicosus,mordax,atrox), they are simplyworkers.
Every other insect is stronger than they are; or at least harder, better protected, and more completely armed. All, especially the ants, hunt them, and devour them by myriads. Birds greedily pursue them; the poultry-yards absorb them in frightful quantities. All (even man, who cooks them) find them of an agreeable taste; and the negro can never be satiated with them.
They work without seeing their work. They have no eyes, at least none which are visible. Very probably, the darkness in which they live destroys their ocular organs, as is the case with a species of duck found in the subterranean lakes of Carinthia. The rare species of termites which venture forth into the daylight have very conspicuous and perfectly formed eyes.
The darkness and the persecution to which they are exposed under the light, seem to have developed their singular industry. Against that world of day which shows them so bitter a hostility, they have built, as they have been able, this little world of the shadows, in which they exercise their arts. They issue forth only in search of food, and the gum and other substances of which they make their magazines.
Their attachment is extreme for these cities of darkness. They defend them obstinately. The first blow that is given each resists in his own fashion; the workmen plastering the interior with a kind ofmortar which closes up the holes, the soldiers attacking the assailants and drawing blood with their sharp pincers, clinging to the wound, and suffering themselves to be crushed rather than let go. A naked man (like the negro) shrinks under these bites, grows discouraged, and is conquered.
If you still persist, if you penetrate, you admire the palace, its circuits, its corridors, its aërial bridges, the halls or saloons where the population lodge, the nurseries for the eggs, the caves, cellars, or magazines. But, above all, search to the centre. There lurks the mystery of this little world; there is its palladium, its idol, incessantly surrounded by the cares of an enthusiastic crowd. A strange and shocking object, which is not the less obeyed, and visibly adored!
It is the queen, or common mother, frightfully fecund, from whose body issues an uninterrupted flood of about sixty eggs per minute, or eighty thousand eggs per day!
You can conceive of nothing more fantastic. These strange creatures, which we compare to vermin, have nevertheless their moment of supreme poesy, their hour of love; for a moment their wings uplift them, and almost immediately they sink. The couples thus bereft, having neither refuge nor strength, and no means of resistance, are a prey for all the insects,—a manna upon which they straightway throw themselves. The working termites, which have neither love nor wings, endeavour to save a couple of the victims, welcome them,—weak, and fallen, and wretched as they are,—and make them monarchs.
They remove them to the centre of the city, and establish them in the saloon on which all the apartments and corridors abut. There they are revived, recruited, and nourished day and night; and the female gradually assumes an enormous size, until in body and stomach she is two thousand times larger than her natural condition,—though, by a hideous contrast, the head does not increase. For the rest, immovable, and therefore captive, the doors through which she entered have become infinitely too narrow to admit of the egress of such a monster. Accordingly, there she will remain, pouring out, until she splits asunder, that torrent of living matter which the termites day and night collect, and which, to-morrow, will be the People.
This soft and whitish-looking creature, a stomach rather than a being, is at least of the size of the human thumb: a traveller pretends to have seen one as large as a crab.
The bigger she is, the more fertile, the more inexhaustible, this terrible mother of lice seems the more enthusiastically worshipped by her fanatical vermin. She appears to be their ideal, their poetry, their ecstasy. If you carry them off, with a fragment, a ruin of the city, you may see them, under a glass shade, instantly set to work to build an arch for the protection of the mother's venerated head, to reconstruct her royal hall, which will become, if the materials be sufficient, the centre and basis of the resuscitated community.
I am not astonished, let me add, at the extravagant love which they show towards this instrument of fecundity. If every other race did not jointly labour to destroy them, this truly prodigious mother would make them masters of the world,—nay, what do I say?—its only inhabitants. The fish alone would survive; but the insect world would perish. It suffices to remember that the queen-bee takes a year to accomplish what the termite mother accomplishes in a day. Through her means they would swallow up Everybody; but they are feeble and savoury, and it is Everybody which swallows up them.
When the species of termites which live and dwell in the woods unfortunately approach near our habitations, there is no means of arresting their ravages. They work with a truly incredible vigour and rapidity. They have been known in one night to eat their way through the leg of a table, then through the thickness of the table itself, descending through the leg on the opposite side.
The reader can easily imagine the effect produced by such toil as this on the joists and framework of a house. The worst of it is, that a long time may elapse before their ravages are detected. We continue to rely upon supports which suddenly, one fine morning, crumble away; we sleep peacefully under roofs which to-morrow will cease to exist.
The town of Valencia, in New Grenada, undermined by the subterranean galleries these insects have excavated in the earth, is now literally suspended upon their dangerous catacombs.
We have ourselves seen, at Rochelle, the formidable beginnings ofthe ravages they executed in the timber-work of a quarter of the town where they were introduced by foreign ships. Whole buildings are found eaten up, though apparently sound,—all the wood hollowed and tunnelled, even to the banisters of the staircase: do not rest upon them, or they will yield and give way under your hand. These terrible nibblers seem willing, however, to confine themselves to one district of the town, and not to invade the remainder. Otherwise, this historical city, important still through its marine and its commerce, would be reduced to the condition of Herculaneum and Pompeii.
II.—INSECTS AT WORK.
II.—INSECTS AT WORK.
CHAPTER II.THE ANTS:—THEIR DOMESTIC ECONOMY—THEIR NUPTIALS.The ants enjoy a superiority over all other insects, inasmuch as they are less specialized by their mode of life, their nourishment, and the instruments of their industry. Generally, they adapt themselves to all conditions, and work in all climates; nor in all Nature do more energetic agents in purification and cleansing exist. They are, so to say, the factotums of Nature.
CHAPTER II.
THE ANTS:—THEIR DOMESTIC ECONOMY—THEIR NUPTIALS.
The ants enjoy a superiority over all other insects, inasmuch as they are less specialized by their mode of life, their nourishment, and the instruments of their industry. Generally, they adapt themselves to all conditions, and work in all climates; nor in all Nature do more energetic agents in purification and cleansing exist. They are, so to say, the factotums of Nature.
The termites, at least the majority of them, work in the darkness, under the earth; the ants both above and below.
Like the termites, they build, at least in tropical countries, the most remarkable edifices,—domes under which their chrysalides enjoythe warmth of the sun without being injured by its scorching rays. But these are not fortresses; the ants have no need of them; for in the tropical regions they are the sovereigns and tyrants of all other beings. The exterminatingcarabi, the invadingnecrophori, which play among us, as insects, therôleof the eagle and the vulture, scarcely venture to make their appearance in the burning latitudes where the ants hold sway. Everything which lies on the earth's surface they immediately devour. Lund, in hisMémoire sur les Fourmis, says that he had scarcely time to pick up a bird which he had seen drop. The ants were already on the spot, and had seized upon it. The sanitary police is performed by them with an implacable and energetic exactitude.
The great ants of the South are much more savage than our European species; and feeling themselves sovereigns and mistresses, feared by all, dreading none, they march forward imperturbably, without suffering any obstacle to divert their course. If a house stand in their way, they enter, and all that is alive within it—even the enormous, venomous, and formidable spiders, ay, and small mammiferous animals also—is devoured. Men give place to them. And if you cannot quit your house, you have reason to fear their invasion. Once, at Barbadoes, a long column was seen defiling for several days in formidable numbers. All the earth was black with them, and the torrent poured forward straight in the direction of the houses. They were crushed by hundreds, without heeding their losses; myriads were destroyed, but they continued to advance. No wall, no ditch, was of any service; water even could not arrest their progress: for it is known that they construct living bridges, by fastening on to one another in clusters and garlands. Fortunately, the plan was adopted of sowing the ground in advance of them with numerous tiny volcanoes, small heaps of gunpowder, which were fired at intervals beneath them, and exploding, swept away whole files, and dispersed the rest,—covering them with fire and smoke, and blinding them with dust. This scheme proved successful. At least, the ants turned aside a little, and moved in a different direction.
Linnæus calls the termites the scourge of the two Indies; and wemight equally well bestow this appellation on the ants, if we considered only the havoc they commit among the labours and cultivation of man. In a few hours they strip a large orangery, denuding it of every leaf. In a single night they devastate a field of cotton, manioc, or sugar-cane. Behold their crimes! Their virtues? they destroy to a still greater extent all things that might prove hurtful to man, and but for them certain countries would be uninhabitable.
As for our European species, I cannot see that they do the slightest harm, either to man, or to the plants he cultivates. Far from it, they deliver him from an infinity of little insects. I have frequently seen long files of them, with each carrying in his mouth a very small grub as a contribution to the food stores of the republic. Such a picture should ensure them the benedictions of every honourable agriculturist.
The mason-ants, which work in and entirely under the earth, are difficult to observe. But the "carpenters" may be easily followed, at least in the upper part of their constructions. The cupola of their edifice being subject to dilapidation, they are constantly under a necessity of repairing and re-excavating it. With the small amount of soil which they make use of, they mix the leaves and spines of the fir, and the catkins of the pine. If they meet with a bent; twisted, and knotty twig, it is a treasure; they employ it as an arcade, or, better still, as an ogive; for the pointed arch is the most solid. The numerous avenues which lead to the surface spread out in radii like a fan; they start from a concentric point, and extend to the circumference. The mass of the edifice is divided into low but spacious apartments. The largest is in the centre and under the dome; it is also the most elevated, and destined, apparently, for public communications. There, at all hours, you will find a knot of busy citizens, who, by the rapid contact of their antennæ (a kind of electric telegraph) seem to relate to one another the news, and exchange opinions or mutual directions. It is a kind of forum.
There is nothing more curious than to observe the various occupations and movements of this great people. While some, as purveyors, go in search of grubs, hunt insects, or collect materials, others, sedentaryin their habits, attend entirely to domestic cares and the education of the young. An immense and an incessant occupation, if we may judge from the continual movement of the nurses round the cradles. Let but a raindrop fall, or a single sunbeam penetrate, and a general stir takes place, a general removal of all the children of the colony, and this with an ardour which never wearies. You may see them tenderly taking up the big children—which weigh as much as themselves—and transferring them from stage to stage, to rest them in a convenient position.
This scale of heat, extending over forty degrees, what is it but a thermometer?
But more remains. The cares of alimentation, of what one might call "suckling," are much more complicated than among the bees. The eggs must receive a nourishing humidity from the mouth of the nurses. The larvæ take the beakful. And the young one which has worn through its husk and become a nymph, would not have strength enough to emerge from it if the attentive guardians were not at hand to open the husk, release the little tenant, and initiate it into the light. In the artificial ant-hills, which we have procured for the sake of closer examination, we have even succeeded in observing a circumstance which Huber regrets he had been unable to discover.
Some light movements which the infant communicates to its swaddling-clothes give warning that its hour is come. We took great pleasure in watching the nurses seated upon their hind limbs like little motionless, upright fairies, plainly discerning under the silent veil the first yearning for liberty.
As in every superior race, the young comes into the world weak, and frail, and incapable of effort. Its first steps are so infirm that at every movement it falls upon its knees. It requires, as it were, to be kept in leading-strings. Its great vitality is only shown by an incessant demand for food. Therefore, when the heat is great, and numerous swaddling-husks must be opened daily, the new-born are all lodged in the same part of the city.
NEST OF RUSSET ANTS.
NEST OF RUSSET ANTS.
One day, however, I saw a young ant thrust forth its head, still somewhat pale, at a gate of the city, then step across the threshold, and march along the summit of the ant-hill. The escapade, however, was not long permitted. A nurse encountering the fugitive, seized it by the top of its head, and conducted it gently towards a neighbouring entrance.
The child resisted; it suffered itself to be dragged along, and on the way coming in contact with a small piece of wood, profited by it to stiffen itself, and exhaust its conductor's strength. The latter, always keeping its temper, let go for a moment, executed a flank movement, and then returned to the charge, until its nursling, tired out, was compelled to yield obedience.
As soon as the young are strong enough, they have to be brought acquainted with the interior labyrinth of the city, the suburbs, the avenues which lead to the outer world, and the neighbouring roads. Then they are trained to hunt, are accustomed to provide for themselves, to live hap-hazard and upon little or any kind of food. Temperance is the basis of the whole commonwealth.
The ant, not being fastidious, but accepting all descriptions of food, is from this very cause the less anxious, restless, and selfish. It is very wrong to call it amiser. Far from being so, it seems solely intent upon multiplying in its city the number of its co-partners. In its generous maternal care of those whom it has not begotten, in its solicitude for those little ones of yesterday which to-day become young citizens, originates a feeling quite novel and very rare among insects,—that of fraternity. (See the works of Latreille and Huber.)
The obscurest and most curious point of their education is, undoubtedly, the communication of language, which reminds the observer of the forms of freemasonry. It enables them to transmit really complicated directions to their legions, and to change in a moment the march of a whole column, the action of an entire populace.
This language principally consists in the touch of the antennæ, or in a light collision of the mandibles. They urge (or perhaps persuade) by blows of the head against the thorax. Finally, they sometimes carry off the auditor, who makes no resistance, and transport him to some designated place or object. In this case, which undoubtedly is both difficult to believe and explain, the convinced auditor unites withthe other, and both together carry off other witnesses, which in their turn perform upon others—the number continually increasing—the same operation. Our parliamentary phrases, "to carry away the crowd," "to transport the hearer," are by no means mere metaphors among the ants!
To this lively gesticulation they join many other scarcely explicable movements,—such as cavalcades, in which they march mounted one upon another, exchanging gay defiances and light blows upon the cheeks. Then they rear themselves upright, and contend by couples, seizing upon a leg, a mandible, or an antenna. Naturalists have spoken of these as their pastimes, but I know not what to think. Among so busy, and obviously serious a family, this gymnastic exercise has perhaps a hygienic object which we do not understand.
We had so well managed our prisoners that they had become habituated to their new domicile, and toiled under our eyes as they would have done in their own city. They rebuilt for themselves a small town in miniature, with gates whose number they carefully augmented, especially on very hot days, for the purpose of giving air to their little ones, whom they took care to place near the openings.
In the evening they conscientiously proceeded, according to their invariable custom, to shut up the gates, as if always afraid of some nocturnal invasion of idle vagabonds. A spectacle of deep interest, which we frequently took occasion to enjoy in front of the great swarming ant-hills.
Nor could there be a more varied picture; on all sides, and at great distances, you might see them coming in long files, each bearing some little article,—one a long straw, another a pretty pine nut-cup, or (according to the country) a black needle-like leaf of the fir-tree. These, like little woodcutters returning at close of day, brought back imperceptible bundles of twigs; others, which seemed empty-handed, were but the more heavily loaded, having just taken prisoners some wood-lice, which they carried home for the evening meal of the little ones.
At the approaches of the City, the points where the ascent commenced, it was a pleasure to see the vigour, the zeal, and the ardourwith which they dragged up such heavy materials. If one let go, exhausted, two or three others succeeded. And the joist or beam, full of animation, and apparently alive, gradually ascended. Skill and foresight supplied the want of strength. If checked at any particular point, they turned and advanced in a somewhat different direction, ascending a little higher than was necessary; then they let down the weight exactly over the opening which they wished to conceal; a quick light movement made the mass pirouette, and it fell into its place.
Numerous problems in statics and mechanics were solved by a felicitous audacity and with a great economy of effort. By degrees all was secured. The vast dome, embracing with a soft and delicate curve a great nation of workers in its lawful repose, offered nothing to the sight, neither door nor window, and appeared to be a simple heap of tiny fragments of fir. Do I mean that all slumbered in full confidence? It would be wrong to think so. A few sentinels wandered to and fro; at the lightest touch of a switch, or the rustle of a leaf, the guards would issue forth, perambulate the exterior of their city, and when reassured would re-enter, but, undoubtedly, to continue their watch, and remain upon duty.
The most surprising scene at which any one can be present is a marriage of ants.
Of all follies, as everybody knows, the worst are those of the wise. The honourable, economical, and respectable republic accordingly presents (one single day yearly, it is true) a prodigious spectacle—of love?of madness?—we do not know, but certainly of vertigo, and to speak plainly, of terror. M. Huber saw in it the appearance of a national holiday. What a holiday! And what a scene of intoxication! But no; nothing human can give an idea of this boiling effervescence.
I watched it on one occasion, between six and seven o'clock in the evening. The day had been one of heavy showers and warm gleams of light. The horizon was lowering, and yet the air calm. It was Nature's pause before resuming her storms of rain.
Upon a low sloping roof I saw descend quite a deluge of winged insects, which seemed stunned, confused, delirious. To describe their agitation, their disorderly movements, their somersaults and shocks to arrive more quickly at the goal, would be impossible. Many rested, and loved. The greater number whirled round and round without stopping. All were so eager to live, that their very eagerness proved an obstacle. This feverish desire produced a feeling of alarm.
A terrible idyllic poem!
It was impossible to make out what they wished. Were they enjoying a festival of love? Were they devouring one another? Right through this distraught multitude offiancéswho had lost their senses passed other and wingless ants, which threw themselves without mercy on the most embarrassed individuals, bit them, and treated them so severely, that we thought we could see them crunching the lovers. But no! They wanted nothing more than to force them to obey, and to recall them to their senses. Their vivid pantomime was the counsel of prudence translated into action. The wingless ants were the wise and irreproachable nurses, who, having no children, bring up those of the others, and bear all the burden of the toil and management of the city.
These virgins maintained a surveillance over the amorous and slothful, and rigidly inspected the marriage-festival as a public act, which, every year, renews the nation. Their natural fear was lest the winged fools should be wooed and won elsewhere, and create other tribes, without any thought of the parent community.
Numbers of the winged ones submitted, and allowed themselves tobe carried below towards their country and virtue. But many tore themselves away, and flew afar, obedient only to the dictates of love and caprice.
It was an astonishing vision, a fantastic dream, which can never be forgotten.
In the morning nothing remained as a memorial of the excesses of the preceding evening, except the fragments of some severed wings, in which no one could have divined the trace of a uniquesoirée d'amour.