CHAPTER IV.

THE INSECT AS MAN'S AUXILIARY.

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 the potato."

How should this be? The disease, which first broke out in September 1845, is produced, says the author, by microscopic animalcules and parasitical vegetation previously destroyed by the insects. But these insect-protectors of agriculture perished, devoured by birds, in 1844. The fatal law passed in the May of that year, for the protection of the birds, must have multiplied them to such a degree, that the insects, driven out and destroyed by them, could no longer afford to our plants the succour which defended them against their invisible enemies.

This hypothesis, supported with much wit and ability, and apparently grounded on facts and dates, rests wholly on one basis, and if it fails, crumbles to the ground.

It supposes that the birds have been efficaciously protected by the law, and that, in twelve years, they have been so able to multiply as to become masters of the field, the tyrants and exterminators of the useful insect-species, and that, in fine, the latter have unfortunately almost disappeared.

To this three replies may be given:--

1st. The birds have _not_ multiplied. We must not go for the truth to the _Bulletin des Lois_ (the Statute-book), but to fowlers and bird-catchers. And they reply:--"So many birds have been destroyed since the enactment of the law for their benefit, that in certain countries sport has actually become impossible, because there are no more to kill."

In Provence, in the very localities where the gnats are insupportable (and the birds, therefore, most precious),--in the Camargue,--the sportsmen, in default of edible birds, now kill the swallows. They place themselves on the watch at the points where the winged legions pass in files, and slaughter several victims at one discharge.

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2nd. The insects have by no means been destroyed by the birds. Ask of the agriculturists what species has disappeared. Let them search ever so keenly, and they will not find that a solitary species has diminished. On the contrary, in the years referred to we have seen them increase, and grow, and flourish, and nothing prevents them from making war at their pleasure on the invisible animalcules.

Not an insect-species is wanting; but, on the contrary, some careful observers tell us, in their books on Hunting or Natural History, that numerous species of birds will soon become extinct.

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3rd. Birds are not, as the author of the memoir calls them, "unintelligent assassins." Far from this, they kill by preference the most injurious insects. The time at which they carry on a really murderous war is when they are feeding their young. But what do they feed them with? With very few insectivorous insects; the latter, armed and mailed--carabi and stag-beetles--covered with metallic scales, equipped with hooks and pincers, of an indestructible vitality, would be a horrible food for the young of the warbler, who, before such a provision, would assuredly take to flight. This is not the kind of aliment the sagacious mother seeks for her offspring; but soft and, as it were, milky insects, fat and succulent larvæ, fine little tender caterpillars,--all herbivorous, fructivorous, and leguminivorous animals; exactly those which do the greatest mischief in our fields and gardens.

Accordingly, the great labour of the bird against the insect precisely coincides with the labour of the husbandman.

For the rest, we are far from saying, as the author referred to makes us say, that the bird is the sole purifier of creation. One must be blind, and indeed senseless, not to see that he shares this mission with the insect. The action, too, of the latter is undoubtedly more efficacious in the pursuit of a world of living atoms, which the insect, whose eyes are microscopes, detects and pounces upon in numerous obscure corners, inaccessible to the bird. The bird, on the other hand, is the essential purifier of everything demanding long-sightedness and the power of flight,--as, for example, the frightful clouds of invisible animalcules which float and swim in the air, and therefore pass into our lungs.

As a rule, the equilibrium of species is desirable. All are more or less useful. We willingly join with the author of the paper referred to in the wish that those insects which prey upon the smaller species might be specially distinguished and spared. The peasant destroys them indiscriminately, without knowing that by killing, for instance, the dragon-fly (or _libellula_)--the brilliant murderess which slays a thousand insects daily--he is helping the latter: becomes the auxiliary of the insects, the preserver and propagator of the enemies which devour his substance. The terrible cicindela does not fly so high, but with its crossed daggers, or rather the two scimitars which serve it for jaws, accomplishes a swift and almost incredible havoc among the smaller insects. Take care, then, and respect it. Do not listen to the child who is dazzled by the beauty of its wings, nor, to please him, impale on the needle-point your admirable insect-hunter, the efficacious auxiliary of the agriculturist!

The carabi,--immense warrior-tribes armed to the very teeth, and displaying an ardent activity beneath their heavy coats of mail,--are the true guardians of your fields; and day and night, without holiday or repose, protect your crops. They themselves never touch the smallest blade or seed. Their sole occupation is to capture thieves, and they ask for no other reward than the thieves' bodies.

Others toil underground. The innocent lobworm, which pierces and stirs up the soil, gets ready in a marvellously excellent manner the muddy and clayey earths which are deficient in evaporation. Others, in company with the mole, hunt far down in the depths the cruel enemy of agriculture, the horribly voracious larva of the destructive cockchafer, which, for three years, has been preying on the roots beneath the surface.

The insectivorous insects put forth undeniable claims to the protection of man, whose allies they are. But even among the herbivora there are useful destroyers of harmful plants. The useless, pungent, and in every sense disagreeable nettle, which scarcely a single quadruped will deign to touch, fifty species of insects, in fellowship with ourselves, labour to destroy.

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A very beautiful class of insects, some rich in outward garb, and others in intelligence, are the _Necrophori_, which render us the important service of clearing away all dead matter from the soil. Nature, which finds them so useful, has treated them truly as her favourites, honouring them with splendid costumes, and making them both industrious and ingenious in the discharge of their functions. It is a remarkable circumstance that, notwithstanding their sinister office, they are far from being wild, but are very sociable if the need arises, and understand how to unite their forces, combine their energies, and act in concert. In brief,--these honest undertakers and grave-diggers are the brilliant aristocracy of the insect nation.

It is evident that Nature's ideas are not the same as ours. She loads the most useful with rewards, whatever the nature of their work. For instance, the _Geotrupes_, which clears away the dung, is clothed in sapphire in payment of its service. The celebrated _Coleopteron_ of Egypt, the sacred _Ateuchus_ of the tombs,[J] appears glorified with an emerald aureola.

[Footnote J: The _Ateuchus sacer_, or Sacred Scarabæus of the Egyptians.]

Who shall describe all the services rendered by these scavengers? Yet we are not just in our dealings with them. It happened to me, one April, when I was about to transplant to my garden some dahlias which had passed the winter in the orchard, to discover that the humidity of the air of Nantes, and the compact and imporous clayey soil, had rotted the tubers. A bevy of insects were at work upon them, and usefully engaged in purging this shocking centre of dissolution. The gardener was very indignant, and ready enough to accuse them of the evil which they were endeavouring to remedy.

The enemy of damp gardens, the snail (_Helix_), is pursued by an insect,[K] the _Drylus_, which lies in wait for it, and, the better to hunt it up, mounts on its back, and makes it carry him, seizes a favourable opportunity, and on the snail re-entering its shell, enters also, lives with it and upon it. A snail lasts him about a fortnight. Then he passes on to another and a larger, and then to a third still larger. He requires three in all. In the third, as he is about to change into a pupa, the drylus makes the place clean, and, to sleep conveniently, seizes on the substantial house of the enemy which has nourished him.

[Footnote K: The larva of the _Drylus flavescens_.]

There could be no more useful task than to enlighten the peasant on the distinction that ought to be made between insects useful to agriculture and insects which are noxious; or those which may be turned to advantage in various sciences,--and especially in Chemistry,--which, it is probable, will yet discover unexpected resources in beings endowed with so copious and intense a vitality. In this respect, a very honourable work of initiation has been undertaken by the eminent naturalist who has so skilfully organized the museum at Rouen. All his pupils have preserved a grateful recollection of their teacher; and it is to one of them I owe the following summary of an original and instructive lecture on the Insect as Food.

"A prejudice much to be regretted, and a ridiculous fastidiousness, has debarred our Western peoples from one of the richest and most exquisite sources of nourishment. What right have they who devour tainted game, and unclean birds,--what right have the lovers of the oyster, that slimy mollusc, to reject the nourishment supplied by the Insect World?

"Burgundy has the good sense to profit, without any feeling of silly disgust, by the excellent mollusc which peoples its vineyards,--I mean the snail,--which is very good with butter and salads, and a dish as wholesome for the chest as it is agreeable to the mouth and profitable to the stomach.

"A celebrated _savant_--Lalande--dared to take a step further in advance, and to venture upon the caterpillar, rising thus another step above our prejudices. It is to him we owe our knowledge of the fact that the caterpillar tastes like almonds, and the spider like hazel-nuts. He addicted himself to the latter, which he found more delicate."--I should think so. In every sense, the spider is a superior being.

"Many insects are so nutritious and savoury that they have been specially selected by ladies as a diet likely to renew their life, beauty, and youth. The Romans of the Later Empire recovered the ample outlines of the Cornelias of the Commonwealth by the use of the _Cossus_.[L] The sultanas of the East, of those voluptuous lands where love seeks the rounded, swelling figure, make their slaves bring them a supply of _Blaps_,[M] and idling in their gardens, to the music of leaping fountains, imbibe from the succulent insect an eternal youthfulness.

[Footnote L: The Goat-Moth Caterpillar.]

[Footnote M: The women of Egypt, it is said, eat the _Blaps sulcata_ cooked with butter.]

"In Brazil, the Portuguese extracts from the Malalis of the bamboo, when the tree wears its nuptial flower, a kind of fresh butter for the table; and eats the ants in sweetmeats, at the moment that their wings uplift them on the breeze like an aspiration of love.

"But generally the insect, apart from its real value, has been hunted by the peasants whose tillage it destroyed. It plundered them of their food, and, in revenge, they themselves have fed upon _it_. The terrible locust, whose vast increase has so often imperilled the East, has been, on that very account, the more eagerly pursued and devoured by the Orientals. The story runs that the Caliph Omar, when seated at his family table, observing a locust alight there, read inscribed upon its wing:--'We hatch nine and ninety eggs; if we laid a hundred, we should devastate the world.'

"Fortunately the locust is the manna of Asia. Who does not know that the prophets, musing in the caves of Carmel, ate nothing else? The Mohammedan anchorites adopted the same _régime_. One day a person said to Omar:--'What think you of locusts?' 'That I would fain have a basketful.' Soon afterwards the supply failed him. It was with difficulty his servant found a single insect; whereupon he, delighted and grateful, exclaimed, 'Allah is great!'

"Even at the present day locusts are sold throughout the East, and are eaten in the café as a dessert and a delicacy. Ships are loaded with them, and they are bought and sold by the cask.

"Here, then, we have insects exceptionally nutritious and substantial. What prevents us from making use of them? What scruple hinders us from active and useful reprisals against them?"

At this part of his discourse, the orator found his audience, consisting mainly of intelligent Norman peasants, wrapped in deep attention, as at those points of the debates of the British Parliament when the accustomed cry arises of "Hear! Hear!"

He had foreseen such a moment; and having loaded his table with some of the insects most dreaded by agriculturists, he seized them, crunched them, and swallowed them gravely, with this strong speech, which will not be without fruit:--"They have eaten us: let us eat them!"