Category: Science - Biology
The Insect
I. TERROR AND REPUGNANCE OF CHILDHOOD, 57 II. COMPASSION, 67 III. WORLD-BUILDERS, 79 IV. LOVE AND DEATH, 89 V. THE ORPHAN: ITS FEEBLENESS, 99 VI. THE MUMMY, NYMPH, OR CHRYSALIS, 109 VII. THE PHOENIX, 119
Chapters
29. CHAPTER IX.
In the life of the bees, all things are brought to bear on the welfare of the infant. Let us see, then, this object of love. Let us see what is lying at the bottom of the cell;...
3. BOOK III.--COMMUNITIES OF INSECTS.I. THE CITY IN THE SHADOWS: THE TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS, 235 II. THE ANTS:--THEIR DOMESTIC ECONOMY--THEIR NUPTIALS, 245 III. THE ANTS:--THEIR FLOCKS AND THEIR SLAVES, 259 IV. TH...
11. CHAPTER I.What was known of the Infinite prior to 1600? Nothing whatever. Nothing of the infinitely great; nothing of the infinitely little. The celebrated page of Pascal, very frequently...
24. CHAPTER IV.It is the tyrant's punishment that he could not, even if he would, easily deliver his captive. So long as my nightingale sings, I know that he cares little for his cage, and I b...
12. CHAPTER II.Armed with that sixth sense which man has achieved for himself, I can move forward, at pleasure, in any direction. It is in my power to track out, to reach, to compute the spher...
23. CHAPTER III.When I learned for the first time, from the pages of Huber, the strange and prodigious fact that certain ants keep slaves, I was greatly astonished--as everybody has been by thi...
19. CHAPTER IX.In the fertile countries of the tropics, where game abounds, it lives with its fellows. Some are said to weave around a tree one immense net, common to all, whose avenues they g...
22. CHAPTER II.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. Gener...
5. CHAPTER II.One day, into the studio of the painter Gros entered a pupil of his, a handsome and careless young man, who had thought it clever to pin to his hat a beautiful butterfly, which,...
27. CHAPTER VII."When the plant attains to the flower, the climax of its existence,--when it assumes its symmetrical outlines, its perfumes, its colours, and a certain degree of animal irritabi...
28. CHAPTER VIII.If the wasp's nest resemble Sparta, the bee-hive is the veritable Athens of the Insect World. There, all is art. The people--the artist-élite of the people--incessantly create t...
15. CHAPTER V.No living creature reveals itself more clearly; though only from itself to its kind, from insect to insect. They are bound up in themselves; are a sealed world, which has no out...
13. CHAPTER III.Let us first attack the point where he wounds us most, and seems the auxiliary of death: his immense, ardent, and indefatigable work of destruction. Let us contemplate him in hi...
20. CHAPTER X.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...
25. CHAPTER V.When the wasp on a summer's day enters at the window, with its loud, aggressive, and menacing _zou! zou! zou!_ everybody is on his guard. The child trembles, the mother suspends...
8. CHAPTER V.We have told the easiest and pleasantest story to relate, the story of the privileged creature for whom its mother has duly provided, and who is nourished and clothed by her eff...
14. CHAPTER IV.A hunter of small birds, in an ingenious academical memoir, gives utterance to the following paradox: "Their recent multiplication is the cause of the disease in the vine and th...
21. CHAPTER I.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 ca...
9. CHAPTER VI.Let us respect the childhood of the world. Let us pardon the early ages for the consolations and hopes which they drew from the strange drama represented by the Insect, the thou...
6. CHAPTER III.The Infinite of the invisible life, the silent life, the world of night and of the inner earth, of the shadowy ocean,--the unseen creatures of the air which we breathe, or which...
26. CHAPTER VI.All modern writers have triumphed over the ignorance displayed by the poet Virgil in his fable of Aristæus, who draws life out of the womb of death, and causes his bees to sprin...
18. CHAPTER VIII.The Arts properly so called, the Fine Arts, should profit much more than the Industrial, by the study of insects. The goldsmith and the lapidary would do well to seek in them mo...
7. CHAPTER IV.Above the infinite elementary life,--that quasi-vegetable life in which generation is but, as it were, a-budding,--begins the distinct, individual, and complete organism whose s...
10. CHAPTER VII.The drama is complete. From the gray or blackish mummy which just now lay before you dried and shrivelled, you see the new creature, the resuscitated, the phoenix, blithely esca...
16. CHAPTER VI."The ideal of the human arts of spinning and weaving,"--said to me one day a Southerner (a manufacturer, but a man of imagination),--"the ideal which we always follow is a woman...
17. CHAPTER VII.Hitherto we have dealt with only one kind of silk,--that of the bombyx, and indeed that of a species of bombyx which is not very fertile. Let us hope that the meritorious Societ...
4. CHAPTER I."Winter, summer, and nearly all the fine days of the year, had passed since the departure of my father for Louisiana, from which he was not fated to return. Our country-house ha...
55. CHAPTER IX.--HOW THE BEES CREATE THE PEOPLE AND THE COMMON MOTHER.Care of the bee for the nymph, or larva, 321 As it grows, so does its wonderful organization develop, 322 Special care bestowed on the future queen, 323 The queen bee has attrib...
31. CHAPTER II.--COMPASSION.The artist Gros reproached a young man for cruelty towards a butterfly, 67 Lyonnet, the naturalist, equally insisted on tenderness towards even the lowest forms of life, 68 The...
50. CHAPTER IV.--THE ANTS: CIVIL WAR--EXTERMINATION OF THE COMMUNITY.It is the punishment of the tyrant that he cannot readily set free his captive, 271 The caged nightingale, and the clod of earth, 272 This clod proves to contain a republic of c...
39. CHAPTER III.--THE INSECT AS THE AGENT OF NATURE IN THE ACCELERATIONThe language of the insect in its immense energy, 155 A glance is directed at the order of Nature, 156 And it is shown that all forms of life must be kept within certain limits,...
40. CHAPTER IV.--THE INSECT AS MAN'S AUXILIARY.The want of insect-labour induced the potato disease, 165 Such is the dictum of an author, who thinks that the multiplication of small birds has been destructive to insect-life;...
37. CHAPTER I.--SWAMMERDAM.The secret of the Insect World first discovered by Swammerdam, 129 A comparison instituted between him and Galileo, 130 His early years, his favourite occupations, and his colle...
49. CHAPTER III.--THE ANTS: THEIR FLOCKS AND THEIR SLAVES.The writer's pain at discovering among the ants the existence of slavery, 259 Considerations which induced him to continue his studies, 260 He finds that the ants keep their "he...
53. CHAPTER VII.--THE BEE IN THE FIELDS.Contrast between the Plant and the Animal, 301 Yet the one life in some points approaches the other, and a certain sympathy exists between the flower and the winged insect, 302...
2. BOOK II.--MISSION AND ARTS OF THE INSECT.I. SWAMMERDAM, 129 II. THE MICROSCOPE:--HAS THE INSECT A PHYSIOGNOMY? 143 III. THE INSECT AS THE AGENT OF NATURE IN THE ACCELERATION OF DEATH AND LIFE, 155 IV. THE INSECT AS MAN...
41. CHAPTER V.--A PHANTASMAGORIA OF LIGHT AND COLOUR.How does the insect express its intensity of vital force? 175 In various ways, but specially through its glowing hues, 176 Which are displayed with a profusion that astonishes a...
35. CHAPTER VI.--THE MUMMY, NYMPH, OR CHRYSALIS.The meaning of the insect to the ancient Egyptians, 109 The beetle was regarded as a symbol of Eternity, 110 Has modern science swept aside the ancient poetry? 110 That it is no...
45. CHAPTER IX.--THE SPIDER--INDUSTRY--STANDING STILL.We come to the consideration of the spider, 211 Whose life is a lottery, and which is branded with ugliness, 212 It is, however, the type of the persevering worker, 213 An anecd...
48. CHAPTER II.--THE ANTS:--THEIR DOMESTIC ECONOMY--THEIR NUPTIALS.Value of the ants as purifying and cleansing agents, 245 An incident at Barbadoes, 246 The carpenter-ants, and their ingenuity, described, 247 Singular affection which they disp...
36. CHAPTER VII.--THE PHOENIX.Out of gloom and obscurity emerges light, 119 The metamorphosis takes place, but the insect is not at a loss, 120 Nature furnishes each species with all its needs for the new li...
54. CHAPTER VIII.--THE BEES AS ARCHITECTS: THE CITY.Artistic character of the bee-hive, 311 Its government democratic, or a modified constitutional monarchy, 312 The writer traces the foundation and erection of the hive, 313 Its...
47. CHAPTER I.--THE TERMITES, OR WHITE ANTS.The habitations of the termites, erroneously called White Ants, described, both externally and internally, 235, 236 A wonderful degree of skill shown in the erection of the grea...
30. CHAPTER I.--TERROR AND REPUGNANCE IN CHILDHOOD.Extract from a Journal written by Madame Michelet, 57 In which she describes a visit to the home of her childhood, 58 Painful impressions produced by the ravages of the insect,...
51. CHAPTER V.--THE WASPS: THEIR FURY OF IMPROVISATION.Sensation caused by the intrusion of a wasp, 283 A panegyric on a much-abused insect, 284 Excessive industry of the wasp, 285 It works, first, as a paper manufacturer; and next,...
52. CHAPTER VI.--"THE BEES" OF VIRGIL.The Virgilian fable of Aristæus misunderstood, 293 Intended by the poet as a parable of immortality, 294 The writer was accidentally led to an understanding of its true signific...
38. CHAPTER II.--THE MICROSCOPE: HAS THE INSECT A PHYSIOGNOMY?In the infinitely little lurks a great attraction for man, 143 Hence its study should be systematically undertaken, 144 Michelet applies himself to his microscope, 145 And exami...
44. CHAPTER VIII.--ON THE RENOVATION OF OUR ARTS BY THE STUDY OF THE INSECT.The Fine Arts would profit by a close study of the insect, 201 Much might be learned, for instance, from the cockchafer's wing, 202 Nature is full of suggestive beauty, 203 Obse...
46. CHAPTER X.--THE HOME AND LOVES OF THE SPIDER.Admirable construction of its web, 223 A glance at the retreat of the Agelena, 224 Still greater ingenuity is shown by the Mygale, 225 In the web lurks the weaver, always expect...
34. CHAPTER V.--THE ORPHAN: ITS FEEBLENESS.The insect enters upon life naked and necessitous, 99 But all its wants have been carefully anticipated, 100 Night, however, is the great protection of the embryo, 101 How it en...
43. CHAPTER VII.--INSTRUMENTS OF THE INSECT: AND ITS CHEMICAL ENERGIES,Hitherto the writer has treated only of the silk of the bombyx, 193 He now commends the culture of other silk-spinning species, 194 And is led to speak of the ingenious instrume...
33. CHAPTER IV.--LOVE AND DEATH.Above these organisms in the scale of creation comes the insect, 89 Its individuality is explained; its mode of reproduction, 90 The insect-mother dies in producing her offsprin...
42. CHAPTER VI.--THE SILKWORM.The exquisite structure of a woman's hair enlarged upon, 185 What can compare with it? Only the silkworm's thread, 186 Peculiar charm attending the silkworm's labours, 186 And t...
32. CHAPTER III.--WORLD-BUILDERS.The world _outside_ the terrestrial world, 79 The world of the infinitely little; the architects of ocean, 80 The immense works accomplished by the lower organisms, 81 They buil...
1. BOOK I.--METAMORPHOSIS.I. TERROR AND REPUGNANCE OF CHILDHOOD, 57 II. COMPASSION, 67 III. WORLD-BUILDERS, 79 IV. LOVE AND DEATH, 89 V. THE ORPHAN: ITS FEEBLENESS, 99 VI. THE MUMMY, NYMPH, OR CHRYSALIS,...