CHAPTER IV.

LOVE AND DEATH.

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 strongly centralized electric network of nerves is able to sympathize directly with the rapid energy of its acts and resolutions.

However humble the insect may seem in appearance, it is from the first independent of the immovable, expectant existence of all the inferior races. It is born entirely free from that communistic fatalism which merges the being of each in the life of all. It exists independently; it moves, goes, comes, advances or returns, changes its determination or its direction at pleasure, or in obedience to its wants, appetites, and caprices. It suffices for itself; it foresees, provides, defends, and boldly confronts the most unexpected chances.

In this, then, do we not discern, as it were, a first glimpse of personality?

The individual stands out from the mass. He shows himself all at once admirably provided with the instruments necessary for the support and sustenance of the individual existence. He is born greedy and _absorbent_. But this very absorbingness is exactly the service which Nature expects of him. It is his mission to purify and disencumber the world; to clear it of morbid or extinct animal matter, which acts as an obstacle to the growth of life; to save the latter from the consequences of its excessive fecundity, the danger of its abundance.

No other being, as we shall prove, exercises so great an influence upon our globe; no other throws itself into the condition of general existence with so vital an energy. But this extraordinary strength, in such disproportion to the size, bulk, and weight of the insect, is subject to a severe law; the rapid, absolute, and complete renewal, at each generation, of the individual.

_Love implies death._ To engender and to beget is to die. He who is born, by the very act of his birth kills.

This is a sentence common to all beings, but carried out upon none more literally than upon the insect.

In the first place, it is death for the father to love. It is indispensable that he should surrender all his powers, and exhaust the best part of his vitality; that he should perish in himself, to revive in him to whom he shall have transmitted his germ of resurrection.

And for the mother, too, in most of the insect species, the condemnation is the same. She will love, give birth, and speedily die. Love for her shall not have its prize and recompense. She shall not see her sons. She shall not enjoy the consolations of death in seeing herself survive in her image.

A great and harsh difference between this mother and the mothers of superior animals! The woman--or the female of the mammal--as a rule cherishes in her own body her beloved treasure, warms it with her own flame, and feeds it with her love. How envious would be the insect-mother, if she knew of this supreme maternal happiness! But _she_ must seek of an ungenial nature, must demand of some other being--tree, plant, fruit, or perhaps the earth itself--that it will condescend to continue the work of her maternity. This is rigorous, but it is not cruel. Let us look at it seriously. If death separate the mother and the child, it is because they cannot live together; because they are strongly sundered by the opposite conditions of life and nutrition. The child, at first a lowly grub, larva, or worm, an obscure miner, a concealed nocturnal worker, must for a long time continue to feed upon the coarsest food, and sometimes even on death itself. She, the mother, who, winged and transfigured, has mounted to a higher life; and lives solely on the honied sweets of flowers,--how could she accustom herself to the shades, and the useful but abject circumstances in which her offspring grows strong? That which is salutary and vital for the tenebrous child of the earth would be fatal to an aërial mother, who has already fluttered in the warmth and genial light of heaven.

It is needful for the due development of the child that its mother should provide it with a triple or quadruple cradle, and there deposit it; not neglected, and without succour, but furnished with its first aliment--an aliment light and fitted for its feebleness, which it can find on its waking up into life. This done, she closes the door, seals it, and voluntarily excludes and interdicts herself from returning thither. Thenceforth she must cede her rights to the universal mother, who shall replace her--Nature.

That in such a cradle the child should live commodiously,--that from its own body it should draw out a silky covering to line its plastic prison,--that finally, when sufficiently strong, it should issue forth under the influence of the heat,--this is self-explanatory, and we admire without being astonished. But what really excites our wonder is, that the mother,--a butterfly, or perhaps a beetle,--after the numerous changes through which she has passed, after her numerous sloughings, transitory slumbers, and metamorphoses, should remember, for her offspring's behoof, the place or plant where formerly she herself was nourished, and grew, and took her point of departure! It is a marvel which confounds the mind. Those creatures apparently the most heedless--the fly, or light-headed butterfly--at the moment when approaching death brightens them with the radiance of love, collect, as it were, their thoughts, and seem to revive their recollections. Then, without lapse or error, they flee away; and lo! the plant which was their own early residence, their birthplace, and their cradle, shall again become their home, and protect their offspring!

All at once they show themselves prudent, foreseeing, and skilful. To obtain an entrance to this asylum, they practise unknown arts and display incredible address. How is this? What happens? Sometimes their weapons of war, diverted to other uses, become instruments of love; sometimes new and hitherto concealed apparatus,--frequently of an extremely complex character,--make their appearance; and yet all for this solitary act, for this single day.

A curious book has been written on the mechanism and infinitely varied instrumentation with which insects are provided for the discharge of the maternal duty. Their implements are often charming from their precision, delicacy, and subtlety. It will suffice to particularize that of the rose-bush aphis,--so well described by Réaumur, as a saw whose two blades act in an inverse direction, and whose teeth are each a set of teeth.

O unheard-of power of Love! Whether this divine workman prepares for them their tiny tools, or whether he inspires them to fashion their own by the effort and vehemency of the burning maternal desire, it matters not: you see them duly fabricated, and acting when wanted in a wholly unexpected manner.

It is a simple task for the tribes of sociable insects which labour with the assistance and protection of a numerous republic; but it is infinitely arduous and painful for the solitary mothers, who, without auxiliary, spouse, or friend, undertake enormous enterprises, and frequently raise constructions which might be the work of giants,--such as the nest of the mason-wasp. One is lost in astonishment at the amount of patience and strength of will required for so colossal an edifice.

This excessive toil ages the mother in a few days. She wears herself out, yet does not enjoy the fruit. Frequently the elaborate cradle serves for another. Too frequently a usurping stranger seizes upon it, profits by the meritorious work, and establishes there its progeny, which will not only consume the provision of the rightful tenant, but feed also on the unfortunate tenant himself!

Who will not bestow a glance of pity on this great work, and a result of such uncertain character?

In the burning days of July, when the narrow belt of forests surrounding Fontainebleau concentrated upon it the summer heats, we were astonished at the incessant and continuous labour, despite the indolence of the season, of a solitary bee which was ever going and coming. Her indefatigable journeys always brought her near some vases of camelias and rose-bays. I saw her, still fair and shapely, of a beautiful brown mingled with black, returning, at regular intervals of about five minutes, with woven fragments of leaves, which she introduced through a deep aperture into the soil of the vase where she had made her nest.

For three days she worked with undiminished ardour. There were no signs that she took the least food: constantly at her work, she appeared to have already abandoned all care for her own life.

Her preoccupation was so great and her activity so eager that we were able to approach her very closely. Nothing frightened her; so that we could establish ourselves at our ease near her little nest, and observe her with as much patience as she herself brought to her work.

On the fourth morning we found the opening closed, and we saw her no more. She had completed her task. Exhausted, but rejoicing at its conclusion, she had retired undoubtedly to some obscure recess to await her destiny.

We proceeded delicately to loosen the soil around the sides of the vase, in order to examine into what she had done.

At the bottom, resembling in shape a couple of thimbles, lay two cradles, and in these cradles two little ones. All the care had been for them: so many young, so many cells.

Each was composed of six-and-twenty fragments of leaves. Réaumur, in a similar nest, counted but sixteen. Six of these fragments, which closed up the entrance, were perfectly round,--a remarkable fact, if we bear in mind that the instrument which achieved the work was by no means appropriate to it. Yet they were as accurately finished off as if done by a punch.

The other portions of leaf, cut into ovals, and carefully placed one upon another in due accordance with the contour of the nest, resembled so many roofs designed by the indefatigable mother as a protection against the wind and rain. At the bottom lay a little honey; the last and tender legacy of the mother, bequeathed by her to those whom she had abandoned for ever.

We shall enjoy the satisfaction of seeing them weave their winter shelter. It will be pleasanter for them under our roof than at the bottom of the vase. The mother's intentions will be carefully carried out. Adopted, tended, and removed to Paris, the nymphs of Fontainebleau will take, one fine morning in spring, their flight above our windows, and, as young bees, will be able to gather, if not the honey of the heather, at least that of the Luxembourg.